My Work and My Life: Inventing the Foundation of the Internet Technology

Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 1:30 a.m. to Friday, November 21, 2008 - 2:55 a.m.
EECS Colloquium


Featuring Leonard Kleinrock, Ph.D.*
Department of Computer Science
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, UCLA
*Distinguished Speaker - The lecture will start at 5:30 P.M., followed by a reception.

Location:  McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium
Free and open to the public

About the Speaker:

Professor Leonard Kleinrock is a distinguished professor of computer science at UCLA. Known as a "Father of the Internet," he developed the mathematical theory of packet networks, the technology underpinning the Internet, while a graduate student at MIT. This was in the period 1960-1962, nearly a decade before the birth of the Internet, which occurred in his laboratory when his host computer at UCLA became the first node of the Internet in September 1969. He wrote the first paper and published the first book on the subject; he also directed the transmission of the first message ever to pass over the Internet. He was listed by the Los Angeles Times in 1999 as among the "50 People Who Most Influenced Business This Century." He was also listed as among the 33 most influential living Americans in the December 2006 Atlantic Monthly. Kleinrock's work was further recognized when he received the 2007 National Medal of Science, the highest honor for achievement in science bestowed by the President of the United States. This Medal was awarded "for fundamental contributions to the mathematical theory of modern data networks, for the functional specification of packet switching, which is the foundation of the Internet Technology, for mentoring generations of students and for leading the commercialization of technologies that have transformed the world."

Leonard Kleinrock received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1963. He has served as a professor of computer science at UCLA since then, serving as chairman of the department from 1991-1995. He received his B.E.E. degree from CCNY in 1957, and his M.S. degree from MIT in 1959. He is also the recipient of a number of honorary doctorates around the world. He was the first president and co-founder of Linkabit Corporation, the co-founder of Nomadix, Inc., and founder and chairman of TTI/Vanguard, an advanced technology forum organization. He has published over 250 papers and authored six books on a wide array of subjects, including packet switching networks, packet radio networks, local area networks, broadband networks, gigabit networks, nomadic computing, performance evaluation, and peer-to-peer networks. During his tenure at UCLA, Dr. Kleinrock has supervised the research for 47 Ph.D. students and numerous M.S. students. These former students now form a core group of the world's most advanced networking experts.

Dr. Kleinrock is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an IEEE fellow, an ACM fellow, an INFORMS fellow, an IEC fellow a Guggenheim fellow, and a founding member of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council. Among his many honors, he is the recipient of the L.M. Ericsson Prize, the NAE Charles Stark Draper Prize, the Marconi International Fellowship Award, the Okawa Prize, the IEEE Internet Millennium Award, the ORSA Lanchester Prize, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the NEC Computer and Communications Award, the Sigma Xi Monie A. Ferst Award, the CCNY Townsend Harris Medal, the CCNY Electrical Engineering Award, the UCLA Outstanding Faculty Member Award, the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, the UCLA Faculty Research Lecturer, the INFORMS President's Award, the ICC Prize Paper Award, the IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award, and the IEEE Harry M. Goode Award.

Please visit the EECS Colloquium website for a complete list of lectures.