By Justine Coyne
jrcoyne@bizjournals.com, 412-208-3821
Krish Prabhu moved from India to attend the University of Pittsburgh, and said the Oakland campus quickly felt like a second home despite the political unrest around the world in the late 1970s.
“There was unrest in Nicaragua, unrest in Iran and a lot of political activity on the campus at the time,” said Prabhu, chief technology officer at AT&T and CEO of AT&T Labs.
On campus during the time of the Iranian hostage crisis, Prabhu, who was active in the International Students Organization, met with school officials and worked with international students worried about their safety.
“At the time, there was a lot of concern that students would be mistaken for people from Iran and that would lead to unfortunate situations,” he said. “While there were issues at some universities across the country, Pittsburgh was always very hospitable.”
Prabhu, who today oversees 5,000 employees and AT&T’s global technology direction, said if he did not have the opportunity to come to the U.S. and study, he doesn’t know what he would be doing today.
“With all of the opportunities I have had, I feel very strongly that Pitt has been a big part of that,” he said.
After earning two degrees in India — a B.S. in physics from Bangalore University and an M.S. in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology — Prabhu began to look at schools in the U.S.
“I was very poor in India and could not afford to pay for education,” he said. “Pitt was a good fit not only because I could get the financial help I needed, the size of the program was big enough, but not too big.”
With it being his first time away from home, Prabhu said he wanted a school that would allow him to get some traction in the first year, without being overwhelmed by the size.
Prabhu, who worked as a teaching assistant, said he developed a lot of links to Pittsburgh. Although Shuba, his wife of 32 years, also is from India, he met her in Pittsburgh while she was working at Mercy Hospital. The couple was married in Pittsburgh and lived right off the Pitt campus.
In the early years of his career, as Prabhu worked his way up from technical positions at AT&T’s Bell Labs and Rockwell International into senior management roles with Alcatel, he would always travel back to Pittsburgh in his spare time.
“I didn’t have any family in the city, but Pittsburgh always felt like another home,” he said.
Matt Weinstein, senior executive director of development and alumni relations at the Swanson School of Engineering, said reinforcing the connection between successful graduates like Prabhu and the university provides tangible evidence of the quality of the institution.
In 2000, Prabhu established the first Engineering Legacy fund at the Swanson School, a permanent endowment that can be established by any graduate of the engineering school for a minimum of $10,000 paid over five years, with the principle amount given by the donor remaining untouched in perpetuity.
“There is an emotional connection when you spend four or five years in a school, and I was just paying them back in some sense,” Prabhu said. “My time at Pitt was a collection of goodwill during a very important part of my life. I am forever grateful to Pittsburgh and the city’s hospitality.”
Krish Prabhu
- CEO, AT&T Labs, Florham Park, N.J.
- Years graduated: 1977 and 1980
- Degrees: M.S., electrical engineering; Ph.D., electrical engineering
- Biggest lesson learned: “It’s very hard to describe in the context of one lesson because I was 21 when I came to the university, and it was the first time I left my country. To me, I still remember not just the university, but the people of the city really welcoming me with open arms and I feel the university opened doors for me that have been instrumental in my career.”