George, Christopher N.

2017 Marcia Peterman ECE Award

For fostering deep, lasting relationships between alumni and the university while demonstrating the broad impact of an engineering degree

Chris George is a past president of the ECE Alumni Board. His leadership and focused drove fundraising for the new ECE Building and increased alumni engagement with the department and its students. He has also been involved in scholarship development including the Emma L. Marshall and the ECE Alumni Association scholarship funds. He continues to actively engage with the department and the college, mentoring students and advising faculty regarding research and intellectual property. Each spring, George and his firm host students from Illinois and other schools who are interested in patent law, inviting them to learn more and explore potential internship opportunities.

George completed his graduate research in Professor Wen-Mei Hwu’s IMPA CT lab, focusing on compiler technologies and software optimization. His group’s work in runtime software optimization resulted in a patent, several publications, and a conference presentation. During graduate school, George worked with AMD to implement some of these techniques in AMD graphics processors.

Transitioning to intellectual property law, George practiced with McAndrews, Held & Malloy in Chicago for 10 years, including involvement in the contentious Broadcom vs. Qualcomm patent battles of the early 2000s. Now a shareholder at Hanley, Flight & Zimmerman, he helps companies obtain patents and other IP protection while developing strategies for capturing and harnessing creative innovations for business purposes.