IBM honours Asian-American cyber engineer with rare accolade

It is easy to imagine Josephine Cheng, dressed in a smart Sunday dress with a simple strand of pearls, puttering around her half-acre rose garden at the weekends. It is more difficult to picture this soft-spoken woman inside IBM Software Group's Silicon Valley lab, leading a team of more than 30 engineers in the Database Technology Institute.

She may defy the stereotype - she does not even wear the pocket protector - but Ms Cheng is definitely a geek, someone who revels in new technologies.

It becomes obvious as she animatedly describes how DB2 Everywhere, one of her pet projects, will help people access huge amounts of data via the Internet using tiny computing devices.

IBM, her employer of 23 years, confirmed her as a technology leader in June when she was named an IBM Fellow. It is no small honour. Thomas Watson Jr founded the fellows programme in 1962 as a way to promote creativity among the company's 'most exceptional' technical professionals. Since then, IBM has appointed only 158 fellows. Ms Cheng is the fifth woman - and the first Asian American woman - to garner this recognition.

Requirements are stringent: IBM Fellow candidates must have a history of sustained technical achievements and business accomplishments and they must be recognised externally or have added to the body of knowledge in their area of expertise.

They must also have strong potential to make continuing contributions to the industry. Less than a third are appointed.

How did Ms Cheng react to her success?