Follow the Leaders: Lowell Lamb

The Ethernet Alliance welcomes new board member Lowell Lamb, Distinguished Engineer in the Core Switching Group of Broadcom, Inc. Lowell joins the Ethernet Alliance with extensive standards development experience and is excited to bring his knowledge and skills to the leadership team. Learn more about the newest board member in this Q&A. 

Q | Please tell us about yourself and your current role at Broadcom.

I’m a member of Broadcom’s Core Switching Group, where I’ve spent the last 15 years working on PON, campus switching, mobile networking, network synchronization, network security, and most recently, ML/AI networking. Before Broadcom, I worked in various roles spanning the academic, service-provider, systems, and semiconductor sectors. My formal training is in physics, and I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.

Q | What is your background with Ethernet, and how will it inform your contributions to the Alliance?

At different points in my career, I’ve participated in standards development in the ITU-T, IEEE, FSAN Association, and Broadband Forum, and served on the Broadband Forum Board. Ethernet’s great strength lies in the fact that it is an open standard whose maintenance and evolution are in the hands of a community of highly skilled engineers. These experts are drawn from a broad array of organizations, and they meet in open, public forums to chart the course of this vital technology. The free exchange of ideas that occurs in these settings is fundamental to the continuing success of Ethernet, and I look forward to sharing in this discussion as part of the Ethernet Alliance.

Q | Of your 40+ publications and patents, which are you most proud of and why?

The publications on fullerenes are from a period of great scientific interest and personal satisfaction.

Q | What is your favorite use of Ethernet, either traditional or emerging?

The ubiquity of Ethernet in consumer products represents a profound and tangible success for this technology. While devices in this category do not match the performance of the high-end Ethernet products found in data-centers, telecommunications networks, etc., the direct and personal impact of low-cost, interoperable, reliable, and incredibly useful products, all powered by Ethernet, is the best part of the story.

Q | Tell us an interesting or unexpected fact about yourself. 

When time permits, I often read history. It’s always surprising to learn that the same things keep happening.