When Guru Parulkar went looking for a doctoral program back in the early 1980s, the University of Delaware rose to the top of his list because of the quality of its curriculum.

Two decades later, that choice has paid off for Parulkar, who received his Ph.D. in computer and information sciences from UD in 1987. Through innovative research and business acumen, he's gone from a position as professor and research director at a prestigious St. Louis university to co-founder and chief technology officer of a semiconductor firm that's to be bought this summer by Silicon Valley giant Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., for $355 million.

Delaware's program "is a best-kept secret," according to Parulkar, who praises Bob Caviness, then the department chairperson, for providing a "no-nonsense administration with a very nurturing environment." "UD has a half-dozen very strong faculty members in the field of networking in the departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering," says Parulkar, who was advised in the program by David J. Farber--the Internet pioneer who was then a member of the electrical engineering department. (Farber, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is now chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission.)

While at the University, he earned the Frank A. Pehrson Award as an outstanding graduate student and was president of the department's student association.

"What I remember most is that people really cared for students and wanted to do the right thing for them," Parulkar says.

The road to the American dream began for Parulkar near Bhopal, India, where he was born in 1961. He earned a bachelor's degree in electronics and communications at the University of Indore in 1981, and a master's in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay in 1983.

Married by then, Parulkar came to the United States and began studies at UD. He soon sent for his wife, Kalpana, and they now have a young daughter, Nikita.

From 1983-1987, Parulkar studied computer networking and held teaching assistantships in information sciences. His doctoral dissertation involved research in local area networks, or LANs, which link sets of computers in businesses, universities or other organizations.

"Most networks [then] were connected by a single cable, maybe 100 computers, which puts a serious limitation on capacity with 10 million bits of information per second flowing back and forth," he says. "My thesis involved how to replace this with switch-based networks and provide more connectivity among computers."

Eventually, Parulkar says, a web of wires replaced the single-wire concept.

"After Delaware, I went to Washington University in St. Louis, where the emphasis is on research," says Parulkar, who holds a full professorship there.

After working for the next decade on concepts leading to the new generation of "switching fabric," which makes networks operate even faster, Parulkar and colleagues Jon Turner and Jerry Cox decided in 1998 to start their own company, Growth Networks Inc.

"We put up a few thousand each, and we licensed the technology from Washington University," Parulkar says.

"Jon Turner is well known for his work on scalable switching systems," Parulkar says, "whereas my own research before Growth Networks was on scalable routers and multimedia systems. My primary contribution has been leading the effort to find funding for large projects that helped develop the scalable switching systems."

Venture capital soon followed, and the company moved from Missouri to Mountain View, Calif., to be closer to the semiconductor industry. Within two years, Growth Networks had 53 employees creating chips to send data through computer networks at state-of-the-art speeds.

"Once Growth Networks started, Ron Bernal, president and CEO of the company, and Dan Lenoski, vice president of engineering, made a big difference in building the team, leading product development and growing the business," Parulkar says.

"We do chip design and give it to factories that fabricate the chips. These fabrication facilities cost billions of dollars," Parulkar says.

Growth Networks soon caught the attention of Cisco Systems, one of the world's largest providers of computer networking products, which has been buying in an effort to keep the competition at bay. Cisco wants to hold its lead in making equipment to help information flow swiftly through the Internet--and Parulkar's company has the chips it needs.

Cisco said in February it would pay for Growth Networks with stock, and the deal is being closed this summer.

As Parulkar worked his way through the professorial ranks at Washington University, he says one of his most important jobs was as director of that university's Applied Research Laboratory.

The lab, founded in 1988, focuses on research into high-performance networking and multimedia and imaging technologies and receives about $2 million a year in funding from private and government agencies for hardware and software development.

The ultimate research goal is to create systems that can be licensed to industry for product development, according to Parulkar.

When he's not engaged in scientific pursuits, Parulkar says, "My wife will say my hobby is socializing. I also like sightseeing, and playing table tennis, but I do like meeting and interacting with people."

Parulkar says he keeps in touch with UD's computer science department, and has returned for lectures periodically. He's also been a guest professor at universities in Oslo, Norway, and Zurich, Switzerland.

Now, on a leave of absence from Washington University, Parulkar says he'll keep his teaching options open, but is taking a position with Cisco, which is hiring Growth Networks employees.

Except for the firm he and his friends founded, "I've never worked for a company before," Parulkar says. "It's pretty exciting and I'm looking forward to it."