Name: Stephen Wolff

Born: Unknown

  • One of the many fathers of the Internet.
  • Known for turning the Internet from a government project into something that could be publicly utilized.
  • Former Division Director for Networking at the NSF (National Science Foundation).
  • Lead the development of the NSFNET – the first open computer network in the U.S. for the support of research and higher education.
  • Technology and communications researcher for the United States Army.
  • Introduced the UNIX operating system to Army labs in the early 1980s.
  • Supervised a research group that helped in the development of ARPANET.
  • Created the Gigabit Testbed, a joint NSF-DARPA project designed to prove the feasibility of IP networking at gigabit speeds.

Honors and awards

  • Named interim vice president and chief technology officer of Internet2, a nonprofit consortium owned by leading U.S. universities (2011).
  • Internet Society’s Postel Award (2002).