I have worked closely with Alok Choudhary for several years (1990-1995) and 
believe that he is an exceptional candidate for tenure. Alok was on the faculty of 
Syracuse University and we worked closely together on the development of data parallel 
compiler technology.
	Alok was the best of several junior faculty in ECE and CIS at Syracuse during 
this time (indeed he was better than his senior colleagues). His work showed the depth 
and originality that is expected of the leading researchers in a field. After collaborating 
on the first operational HPF compiler (1993), Alok correctly branched out on his own in 
several areas that spanned from multimedia databases to parallel I/O. His work in the 
latter area is known internationally and establishes his ability to lead a high quality 
innovative research project. This work also showed his maturity as it required him to 
collaborate with a large group of talented HPCC researchers.
	I am not directly familiar with Alok's teaching but he supervised several Ph.D. 
students with great success - he was a very popular supervisor.
	I was a member of the committee that recommended tenure for Alok at Syracuse. 
There was unanimous internal and external support for this step. Obviously Syracuse 
University was disappointed that Alok left and this move was Northwestern's gain! Alok 
has my strongest and unequivocal support.