My Career as a Math Major

Tony de Paolo

VP, Technology

QUALCOMM, Inc.

October 26, 2000

tdepaolo@qualcomm.com

Education

• Started at UCSD Revelle College as a Physics major

• Ended up in Warren College as an Applied Math major

• BA Applied Mathematics, 1982

• Minor in Physics (Astrophysics)

• Minor in Philosophy (Logic)

Work at UCSD

• Revelle Cafeteria (!)

• OASIS tutoring center

• Math department - Undergraduate TA for pre-calculus

First Job

• 1982: Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC) in Point Loma as a DoD Scientist– Fourier analysis of dolphin “speech”– Digital voice messaging– Autonomous vehicle internal network– Fixed array SONAR systems– Command and Control networks– Tactical decision aide software

Second Job

• 1986: M/A-Com Linkabit as an Engineer– Digital signal processing for defense satellite

modems, modulation and coding– Began MSEE degree at UCSD in 1988– Leave of Absence from Linkabit in 1989-1990,

finished MSEE at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY

Third Job

• 1990: QUALCOMM as a Senior Engineer– OmniTRACS satellite communication system

• Digital Signal Processing• Satellite Range and Doppler Estimation• Overall system engineer - International deployments

– Worked my way up to VP, Engineering• Managed a group of 200 engineers of all disciplines• Managed a $50M budget

– Currently back in a pure technical role

Upper Division Subjects Used in my Career

• Fourier Analysis

• Probability

• Statistics

• Real Analysis (Galois Field)

• Orbital Mechanics

Graduate Subjects Used in my Career

• Stochastic Processes

• Digital Communication

• Information Theory