UCLA Computer Science Graduate Student named an Inaugural Marconi Society Young Scholar


Rafael P. Laufer

UCLA Computer Science PhD student Rafael P. Laufer was one of four students nationwide to be selected for the Marconi Society’s Young Scholar Awards.

This is the first year the Young Scholars Awards have been granted by the organization, which is best known for its annual $100,000 Marconi Award and Fellowship given to living scientists whose scope of work and influence emulate the principle of “creativity in service to humanity.”

The society’s Young Scholars program was launched with a donation from 2007 Marconi Fellow Ronald L. Rivest, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was a co-founder of RSA encryption, the major encryption system used throughout the world for secure transactions on the Internet.

The Marconi Society’s Young Scholar Award is given in recognition of outstanding academic achievement and intellectual promise in the field of communications science.

Laufer graduated with high honors from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) with a BS and a MS in Electrical Engineering in 2003 and 2005, respectively. He developed a new IP traceback system against anonymous denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on the Internet. The research led to a generalization of the Bloom filter theory, which was used for a more secure and efficient network path coding in forwarded packets.

At UCLA, Laufer has been working on a novel routing paradigm for wireless mesh networks. The key idea is to take advantage of the broadcast nature of the wireless medium to improve the overall throughput of the network. He is also working on techniques for differentiating application traffic on the Internet. His graduate advisor is Internet pioneer Leonard Kleinrock, UCLA distinguished professor of computer science and the 1986 Marconi Fellow.

“It is a great honor to receive this award from such distinguished and respected scientists,” Laufer said. “Their work has truly revolutionized the way we communicate and access information.”

Students from MIT, Stanford University and Columbia University were the other three Young Scholars. Laufer and the other three students will be presented with the award at the Society's annual Awards Dinner, which this year will be held at the Royal Society in London on September 26.

“The outstanding quality of all four students makes me proud to have been able to jumpstart this new program for the Marconi Society,” Rivest said. “The work they are doing promises great things for the future.”

The Young Scholar Awards include a financial stipend and an invitation and travel funds for winners to attend the annual Marconi Award Dinner, where they will have the opportunity to meet a number of Marconi Fellows at the event.

The Marconi Society recognizes outstanding individuals who have made lasting contributions to human progress through the invention and application of communications technology.

09.09.08
M. Chin
photo by Don LIebig, UCLA Photography