A Look Inside the Lab…

I have shown the U.C. Berkeley campus in one of my previous posts. More specifically, Jimmy and I are working in the Connectivity Lab, a lab ‘bridging theoretical concepts and design issues in communications.’ There you go! If I get an overwhelming surge of requests for more details about the actual research we are doing here, I might write about it in a future post. If I don’t get any requests at all, I will certainly bother you with a more extensive survey.

This is the lab’s entry door:

Quite a door aye? No, I just include this picture here to point out that every piece of infrastructure, every room, lab, building, or even campus bears the name of a most generous sponsor or of an important scientist related to the university. Most often the former, though in this case the latter.

Today is a good moment to have a look inside, because our  60 GHz test chips have just arrived:

The left one is the transmitter, the right one the receiver. Or the other way around. Whatever. This was quite an exiting moment, so all the nerds wanted a picture:

Yep, still more of the same but in another different color…

This last picture is of Guangrong Yue, a postdoc from Chengdu who is heading the 60 GHz activities in the Connectivity Lab.

By the way, talking of nerds, this is how Wikipedia defines them: “Nerd is a term often bearing a derogatory connotation or stereotype, that refers to a person who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests that are age inappropriate rather than engaging in more social or popular activities. Therefore, a nerd is often excluded from physical activity and considered a loner by peers.” This definition is a little more accessible, though inevitably also less accurate: “A person with limited social, but advanced technological skills and interests.” The most accurate one however, must be this one: “A nerd is very similar to a geek, but with more RAM and a faster modem. Nerds often find geeks dull because geeks don't spend enough time talking about computers.”

Anyhow, we still have Carl, the director of the lab:

and Ian, a graduate student who is always very obliging whenever Jimmy or I have a practical problem:

Indeed, a lot of Asian people, although Carl and Ian are as American as it gets. Most of the time however, Jimmy and I are in our office, not in the lab:

together with Jiwoong, another graduate student who is working here towards his PhD:

The two most important people for our project are missing: Sofie Pollin and professor Ahmad Bahai. Sofie is currently in Belgium for two weeks, but probably you have already seen her in previous posts. As for Ahmad, I have not yet dared to ask for a picture with him ;-). Maybe if the internship is a real success, you will encounter him later on this blog…