Peter C. Ku (BSEE '85) and John Treichler (BAEE '70, MEE '70) will join the Association of Rice Alumni (ARA) Board as new members beginning in 2009-2010.  As is set forth in the constitution of the Association of Rice Alumni, the ARA board is charged with the management and control of the Association, its programs, affairs, policies and property.

Peter Ku is currently senior counsel at Intellectual Ventures, an invention capital company based in Bellevue, Washington.  He was formerly an associate general counsel at Microsoft Corporation, specializing in intellectual property and licensing, and was the lead counsel for the $2.5 billion Microsoft Unified Communications Group.  Prior to joining Microsoft, Peter was president and chief executive officer of SoilSoup, a company in the organic consumer lawn and garden business.

As a student at Rice, Peter was involved with the national electrical engineering honor society and was on the staff of both the Thresher and Campanile.  He earned a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1985 from Rice, a J.D. in 1992 from George Washington University and an LL.M. in 1994 from Harvard University.

He was recently named to the advisory board of the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice.  He also has volunteered in his community as a member of the City of Redmond Planning Commission and the board of governors of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association as well as a regional governor for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.  Peter currently serves on the board of directors of the Asian Bar Association of Washington.

John Treichler's engagement with Rice has been focused primarily on the George R. Brown School of Engineering.  He also is involved in alumni events in northern California, visits the Rice campus regularly to make technical presentations at colloquia and is a member of the Rice Engineering Alumni (REA).  In 2004, he received the Outstanding Engineering Alumnus award from the REA. 

John earned two degrees from Rice in 1970 - a B.A. in electrical engineering and a Master of Electrical Engineering.  He went on to earn a Ph.D. in 1977 at Stanford University.

He is a co-founder of a 25-year-old publicly owned company that builds signals reconnaissance equipment for the U.S. government and its allies.  He sits on the board of directors of several companies and on the advisory boards for the electical engineering departments at a number of universities. 

John is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and was honored with the IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000 as well as the IEEE Signal Processing Society's Technical Achievement Award.