Hieu Nguyen

M.S. EE ’12, CTO and co-founder of EllieGrid, was named to Forbes 2019 “30 Under 30: Manufacturing and Industry” list. Ellie is a smart pillbox that tells you which pills to take and how many. The company expects $2 million in revenue from sales in 37 countries.

Derek Hyde

’95 (ENG), was named vice president of information technology by the Milwaukee Brewers in November. Hyde graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering and brings more than 20 years of management, IT consulting, and software and development experience to the MLB club.

Rosa M. Bravo

’87 (ENG), ’92 M.S. (ENG), received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Great Minds in STEM (GMiS) at its annual Hispanic Engineers National Achievement Awards conference.

Keith Outwater

M.S. (ENG) ’92, is an engineering fellow at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona. Raytheon develops and provides technologies specializing in missile defense, cybersecurity, and control and command of artillery, satellites and aircraft.

In Memoriam

Edward J. Huck, M.S. ’81 (ENG), of Torrance, California, passed away on Nov. 2 at the age of 62.

Michael Keston, philanthropist and entrepreneur, passed away on Feb. 9. A business leader and philanthropist deeply involved with USC, Keston contributed to causes he considered important to the world.

He and his wife, Linda, were instrumental in supporting innovative research at USC Viterbi’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI). In 2015, the Kestons awarded the institute its first philanthropic gift, the Michael and Linda Keston Executive Directorship Endowment.

Under the stewardship of Prem Natarajan, the endowment’s executive director, the Kestons’ generous gift advances research across the institute, from fighting human trafficking to tracking internet outages in real-time across the world. Funds provided by the Kestons’ gift also support a lecture series featuring acclaimed speakers from academia, industry and government, and a researcher-in-residence program, allowing visiting scientists to explore new projects with ISI’s world-leading researchers.

Richard “Dick” Kaplan,

former USC aerospace engineering chair (1983–1988); vice provost for computing (1988–1994); and professor emeritus, aerospace and mechanical engineering, passed away in Pasadena, California, on April 17, 2018.

Kaplan earned a doctorate of science from MIT, then drove across the country to teach in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at USC. He promptly bought USC football season tickets and attended every home game for the next 40 years.

He did pioneering work on turbulence and jet noise, and had two Fulbright Research Scholarships and two visiting professorships at Aix-Marseilles Université (1971) and Tel Aviv University (1975).

He later devoted himself to academic administration, including serving as associate dean of engineering from 1984 to 1988. From 1993 to 1995, he was the director of the NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.