Computer Scientist Leonard Kleinrock Elected to Academy

Leonard Kleinrock, professor of computer science in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Kleinrock is one of two members of the engineering school faculty to become Fellow. Chancellor Albert Carnesale, who is also a member of the mechanical and aerospace engineering department, was elected to the Academy in 1996.

Three other scholars from UCLA were elected this year, including geography professor William A.V. Clark; Shelley E. Taylor, professor of social psychology; and economist Kenneth L. Sokoloff.

Leonard Kleinrock

Kleinrock is known as the inventor of the Internet technology. While he was a graduate student at MIT, Kleinrock created the basic principles of packet switching, the technology underpinning the Internet and still used today. Kleinrock's host computer at UCLA became the first node of the Internet in late 1969, when he directed the transmission of the first message ever to pass over the Internet. Kleinrock is also a pioneer in the emerging field of nomadic computing, the technology that provides access to and use of Internet services anywhere at anytime.

"Professor Kleinrock is truly deserving of this honor," said Vijay Dhir, dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. "His election to the Academy is a testament to his strong record of personal achievement and his extraordinary contributions to the field of computer science."

The 2003 class of 187 Fellows and 29 Foreign Honorary Members includes four college presidents, three Nobel Prize winners, and four Pulitzer Prize winners. There are 82 members at UCLA, including this year's inductees.

Kleinrock received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1963 and has served as a professor of computer science at the UCLA since then. He was president and co-founder of Linkabit, and is founder and chairman of Nomadix, Inc., a high-tech firm located in Southern California. He is also founder and chairman of TTI/Vanguard, an advanced technology forum organization based in Santa Monica, California.

Kleinrock is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, an IEEE fellow, an ACM fellow and a founding member of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council. He is the recipient of the CCNY Townsend Harris Medal, the CCNY Electrical Engineering Award, the Marconi Award, the L.M. Ericsson Prize, the NAE Charles Stark Draper Prize, the Okawa Prize, the IEEE Internet Millennium Award, the UCLA Outstanding Teacher Award, the Lanchester Prize, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the Sigma Xi Monie Ferst Award, the INFORMS President's Award and the IEEE Harry Goode Award.

Kleinrock's election to the Academy comes a week after UCLA electrical engineering professor Eli Yablonovich became the first professor from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people," according to an announcement made by the Academy May 5. The current membership includes more than 150 Nobel laureates and 50 Pulitzer Prize winners.

-Christopher Sutton
05/07/03