The 2010 Kailath Lecture


The Early Internet, Its Development
& Its Flexible Future




Leonard Kleinrock

Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus
University of California at Los Angeles

Huang Engineering Center, Room 300
Stanford University
Friday, November 12, 2010
9:30am

Abstract

Professor Kleinrock will discuss the relationship between his early work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the mathematics behind packet switched networks, the work that followed, and the creation of the ARPANET/Internet. Included will be a description of the very first days of the deployment and growth of the Internet. The talk will conclude with a vision of the likely future infrastructure of the Internet.

Speaker Bio

Professor Leonard Kleinrock is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California at Los Angeles. 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 BEE degree from CCNY in 1957, and his MS degree from MIT in 1959. He is also the recipient of a number of honorary doctorates across 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 of 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 National Medal of Science, the L.M. Ericsson Prize, the NAE Charles Stark Draper Prize, the Marconi International Fellowship Award, the Dan David Prize, 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.

9.16.2010 dmm