Pianist Hillery Hunter received her trifecta of electrical engineering degrees from Illinois, graduating from the university with her Ph.D. in 2004. After graduation, Hunter took a position at IBM. She had previously worked as an intern the company’s Development Lab in Germany.
She became the Computer Architecture and Research Memory Strategy Lead, overseeing and developing research that supports IBM systems. She has received dozens of awards throughout her career to date, including IBM’s Outstanding Technical Achievement Award
Hunter credits the perspective she built from practicing music as an aid in approaching engineering tasks. “Everything I’ve done here has been interdisciplinary,” she said of her work at IBM.
Read about Hunter’s IBM projects here.
Learn more about her job at IBM through her 2017 YouTube video.
View her ECE Alumni video here.
Vignette written by: Taylor Tucker, August 2017
Updated October 2018