Jeff Jaffe Named Vice President of Research At Bell Labs

MURRAY HILL, NJ -- Jeffrey M. Jaffe, currently vice president of the Advanced Technologies Group of Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU), has been appointed vice president of Research for the company effective October 1st. William F. Brinkman, who previously held the position, is retiring after 35 years with the company, but will continue to serve as an advisor to Bell Labs President Arun Netravali. Jaffe, 47, joined Lucent in 2000 to head Bell Labs' Advanced Technologies Group, which works with Lucent's business units in the commercial development and deployment of new technologies such as software technology, advanced communications technology as well as standards and sponsored research for the federal government. "Jeff has broad management experience and has played a leading role in forging stronger ties between research and our business units that has resulted in improved time-to-market for many of our products and services," said Bell Labs President Arun Netravali. "He is a 'thought leader' in technology, having served important roles in national R&D initiatives and other public policy forums." Prior to joining Lucent, Jaffe held a variety of research and management positions with International Business Machines (IBM). He started as a researcher at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in networking protocols. During his 16 years at IBM Research, he held a variety of leadership positions including IBM Research vice president, Systems and Software. Later in his IBM career, Jaffe held senior positions outside of research, including IBM corporate vice president for technology. Jaffe is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Association of Computing Machinery. He is frequently called upon by the U.S. government to consult on policy initiatives with a focus on the Internet. In 1997, President Clinton appointed Jaffe to the Advisory Committee for the President's Commission for Critical Infrastructure Protection. Jaffe has chaired the Chief Technology Officer Group of the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP), which consists of a dozen of the top computer and telecommunications companies. Jaffe earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics, in addition to a master's and doctoral degrees in Computer Science, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brinkman, 63, has been responsible for all of the research that underlies Lucent Technologies' products for the last two years. One of his key priorities has been improving the technology conversion process and strengthening the connection between research and products. "Under his leadership, Bell Labs has set new records for both the number of patentable innovations generated per researcher, as well as the speed with which those innovations are brought from lab to market," said Netravali. "Our scientists and engineers are getting products from the research lab to market in about half the time, on average, it took when Lucent was launched in 1996, and about half of Bell Labs' research projects are expected to have commercial impact within one year. "Bill's style of leadership - direct, decisive, candid and straight-forward - has won him the respect and loyalty of the entire Bell Labs research community." Brinkman was recently elected president of the American Physical Society and will begin his term next January. A native of Missouri, Brinkman received bachelor's and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Missouri. He joined Bell Labs in 1966, after spending a year as a post-doctoral fellow at Oxford University. In 1972, he was named head of Bell Labs' Infrared Physics and Electronics Research Department, and in 1974 became director of the Chemical Physics Research Laboratory. Brinkman's own research involved a new theory of spin fluctuations in metals and other highly correlated Fermi liquids. In the mid-'70s, he formulated an explanation of the superfluid phases of one of the isotopes of helium and many properties of these exotic states of matter, as well as a theoretical explanation of the nature of the metal-insulator transition known as the Mott transition. In 1984, Brinkman was appointed vice president of Research at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M. He returned to Bell Laboratories in 1987 to become Executive Director of the Physics Research Division. In 1993, he was promoted to Physical Sciences Research vice president, and in January 2000 was named vice president of Research, his current position. Brinkman has served on a number of national advisory committees, including the Council of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1994, he was awarded the American Physical Society's George E. Pake Prize, which recognizes physicists who have combined original research accomplishments with leadership in the management of research. Reflecting on his career, Brinkman said, "After 35 years with AT&T and Lucent Technologies, I've been fortunate enough to be able to help guide one of the world's greatest research organizations as it made a nearly seamless transition from regulated monopoly to competitive champion." With approximately 16,000 employees in 16 countries, Bell Labs is the leading source of new communications technologies. Bell Labs has generated more than 28,000 patents since 1925 and has played a pivotal role in inventing or perfecting key communications technologies, including transistors, digital networking and signal processing, lasers and fiber-optic communications systems, communications satellites, cellular telephony, electronic switching of calls, touch-tone dialing, and modems. Bell Labs scientists have received six Nobel Prizes in Physics, nine U.S. Medals of Science and six U.S. Medals of Technology. For more information about Bell Labs, visit its Web site at For more information visit www.bell-labs.com or www.lucent.com