Radia Perlman
Encyclopedia
Radia Joy Perlman is a software designer and network engineer sometimes referred to as the "Mother of the Internet." She is most famous for her invention of the spanning-tree protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges, while working for Digital Equipment Corporation
. She also made large contributions to many other areas of network design and standardization, such as link-state protocols, including TRILL, which she invented to correct some of the shortcomings of spanning-trees. She obtained a Bachelor's, Master's in Mathematics, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science
from MIT. Her doctoral thesis at MIT addressed the issue of routing
in the presence of malicious network failures.
Perlman is the author of one textbook on networking and coauthor of one textbook on network security. She is currently employed by Intel. She holds more than fifty patent
s from Sun
alone.
Lab at the (then) MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Working under the supervision of Seymour Papert
, she developed a "tiny" version of the educational robotics language LOGO, called TORTIS. During research performed in 1974-6, young children—the youngest aged 3½ years, programmed a LOGO educational robot called a Turtle. Radia has been described as a pioneer of teaching young children computer programming.
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
. She also made large contributions to many other areas of network design and standardization, such as link-state protocols, including TRILL, which she invented to correct some of the shortcomings of spanning-trees. She obtained a Bachelor's, Master's in Mathematics, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
from MIT. Her doctoral thesis at MIT addressed the issue of routing
Routing
Routing is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network , electronic data networks , and transportation networks...
in the presence of malicious network failures.
Perlman is the author of one textbook on networking and coauthor of one textbook on network security. She is currently employed by Intel. She holds more than fifty patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s from Sun
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
alone.
Early research
As an undergraduate at MIT she undertook a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunity), in lieu of course units, within the LOGOLogo (programming language)
Logo is a multi-paradigm computer programming language used in education. It is an adaptation and dialect of the Lisp language; some have called it Lisp without the parentheses. It was originally conceived and written as functional programming language, and drove a mechanical turtle as an output...
Lab at the (then) MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Working under the supervision of Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language....
, she developed a "tiny" version of the educational robotics language LOGO, called TORTIS. During research performed in 1974-6, young children—the youngest aged 3½ years, programmed a LOGO educational robot called a Turtle. Radia has been described as a pioneer of teaching young children computer programming.
Awards
- SIGCOMMSIGCOMMSIGCOMM is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Data Communications, which specializes in the field of communication and computer networks. It is also the name of an annual 'flagship' conference, organized by SIGCOMM, which is considered to be the leading conference...
Award (2010) - USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award (2006)
- Recipient of the first Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision AwardAnita Borg Institute Women of Vision AwardsThe Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Awards honor exceptional technical women. Three awards are presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology each year, recognizing women in the categories of Innovation, Leadership, and Social Impact.-Awards:...
for Innovation in 2005 - SVIPLA (Silicon Valley Inventor of the year) - (April 28, 2004)
- Honorary Doctorate, Royal Institute of TechnologyRoyal Institute of TechnologyThe Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is one of Scandinavia's largest institutions of higher education in technology. KTH accounts for one-third of Sweden’s technical research and engineering education...
- (June 28, 2000) - Again, named as one of the 20 most influential people in the industry in the 25th anniversary issue of Data Communications magazine. (Only person to be named in both issues.) - (January 15, 1997)
- Named as one of the 20 most influential people in the industry in the 20th anniversary issue of Data Communications magazine. - (January 15, 1992)
External links
- Radia Perlman's profile page (at Oracle labs, formerly Sun Labs)
- Inventor of the Week archive at MIT: Spanning Tree Algorithm