Los Angeles.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers conference was held as scheduled.
As the top conference of the Integrated Circuit Design field, not only was this an academic conference, it was also a stage for manufacturers to show off their latest products.
For an applied industry like this, the boundary between academia and industry was blurry.
Many scholars were engineers at their own companies, and many engineers were thesis reviewers. It wasn't uncommon for someone to serve as a Chief Technology Officer while reviewing for an electrical engineering journal.
Professor Michael Mayberry, who was standing on stage, was a classic example.
While he served as the dean of the Intel Semiconductor Research Institute, he also held the position of CTO at Intel.