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December 4, 1997

Telecommunications internship to honor Montgomery

FORE Systems, Inc. has funded an internship in the School of Information Sciences' telecommunications program to honor the late K. Leon Montgomery, one of the program's founders and a Pitt faculty member for more than 20 years.

FORE also has equipped the school's telecom research lab with an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch and corresponding modules and equipment. The ATM switch is considered to be the next generation of high-speed networking technology, with a wide variety of multi-media applications.

In one future version of the ATM, a consumer's television, telephone and personal computer will be combined into one box.

"For many years, FORE Systems has been a good friend and strong supporter of our telecom program," said Toni Carbo, dean of the School of Information Sciences. "By equipping a lab in the school's Information Science and Telecommunications Department with FORE's ForeRunner ASX-1000 ATM LAN Backbone Switch, FORE has demonstrated once again how highly it regards our program. We are most grateful for this support." The new FORE internship, which will begin with the fall term, is officially known at the FORE Montgomery Internship. It is designed to support a student entering the graduate program in telecommunications.

Along with the tuition scholarship, the award includes a comprehensive on-site internship as part of FORE's technical support team.

V. Joseph Trost, manager of technical support/ATM switch products at FORE, was one of Montgomery's students. In announcing the internship, Trost said: "Dr. Montgomery played an instrumental part in the creation of the telecom program, as an educator, adviser and influential spokesperson on behalf of the school's faculty and students." "The establishment of an internship in Leon's honor is one of the most generous and satisfying examples of corporate support I've ever experienced," said Carbo. "It is especially fitting to pay tribute to Leon at this time, when we are celebrating the program's success during its first 10 years." Montgomery received his master's degree in library and information science from Pitt in 1965 and his Ph.D. in 1972. He joined the faculty in 1971, chaired the Department of Information Science, 1981-1984, and served as associate dean of the School of Information Sciences, 1984-1987.

While serving on the University team that established the telecommunications program in 1987, Montgomery was a visiting scholar at the AT&T Bell Laboratories. He died suddenly at age 59 in 1993.

In addition to FORE's contributions, the School of Information Sciences also recently received an ATM test system from Adtech, Inc. The system will allow faculty and students to work with Adtech researchers on performance testing and programming.

"Our faculty and students engage in many forms of research involving ATM switching technology," said Martin Weiss, co-director of the telecommunications program. "The Adtech equipment provides yet another valuable resources in our telecom research lab." In addition to ATM testing, Weiss said, Pitt's partnership with Adtech will allow telecommunications students to conduct other types of research using the Adtech AX/4000 test system. Some faculty members also plan to incorporate the system into their telecommunications curriculum.

Filed under: Feature,Volume 30 Issue 8

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