Lester Fuess Eastman, the John L. Given Foundation Chair Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, has been selected as the recipient of the 1999 Graduate Teaching Award of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. His citation reads, "For inspirational teaching with an impact on semiconductor devices through interdisciplinary graduate education."

Eastman has been at Cornell, both as a student and faculty member, for 50 years. He is involved in graduate education in electrical engineering, applied and engineering physics, and materials science. He has supervised over 100 doctoral theses and keeps in contact with many of his former students. Many of them have made important contributions to research and development in industrial and government laboratories, and 16 former students are now faculty members at various universities. Eastman also has advised the U.S. Department of Defense and has consulted widely in this country and abroad.

At Cornell, Eastman initiated the first university research in the United States in the area of microwave electron devices using compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide. His research group has achieved several important technological transistor advances. These microwave transistors are key to the operation of satellite and wireless communication, as well as to radar.

In 1977 Eastman was a key participant in setting up the National Research and Resource Facility for Submicron Structures, which later became the East Coast hub of the National Nanofabrication Users Network. In 1977 he founded the Joint Services Electronics Program at Cornell, which he directed for 10 years. At present he is leading a group of researchers in a gallium nitride program, which has a goal of achieving 100 times as much microwave power as the gallium arsenide devices now in common use.

Eastman is a recipient of the Heinrich Welker Medal, the Senior Alexander von Humboldt Award, the Aldert van der Ziel Award, the Award of the International Symposium on Gallium Arsenide, and he is a member of the National Academy of Engineers.