Future: Computers and Telecommunications

Prof. Leonard Kleinrock, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles is known as a “Father of the Internet.”

Kleinrock’s seminal research contributions in communication networks established the fundamental principles upon which many of the most important aspects of computer networking and information communications are based. He developed the key mathematical background to packet switching, the fundamental building block of the Internet. Furthermore, his theoretical work on hierarchical routing is now critical to the operation of today’s Internet.

Throughout his career, Kleinrock has been a tireless proponent of the development of computer and communications networks. Both directly and indirectly, Kleinrock has made countless contributions to global efforts in information communications. Kleinrock inspired generations of researchers, both students and coworkers, who today span the computer networking field. He has been a mentor and a role model to countless exceptional PhD students who became leaders among these ranks, and for decades he has been a source of inspiration for faculty and students at UCLA.

Kleinrock has served the larger computer science community as well, in particular through his leadership of the U.S. National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) committee, which laid out the framework in 1988 for today’s emerging Gigabit networks in their first committee report, and led the CSTB committee in producing the 1994 report “Realizing the Information Future; The Internet and Beyond”, which laid out the fundamental vision for the National Information Infrastructure.

Professor Kleinrock has won numerous prestigious awards for his achievements. He was the recipient of the highest scientific honor in the United States – the 2007 National Medal of Science – to quote the citation, for his “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.”