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IEEE Spectrum

As a young researcher fresh out of grad school, Vahid Tarokh thought he knew it all. I was a shallow, competitive man who could solve some technical problems, but could not look beyond mathematics, recalls Tarokh. Then he met his new boss, Robert Calderbank, AT&T's director of the Information Sciences Research Laboratory. Rob went out of his way to educate me in a way that no ordinary professor can ever educate a student, Tarokh says. He taught me to look beyond the equations, to learn to compete against myself and devote myself to a team.

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