Robert Metcalfe
| Robert Metcalfe | |
|---|---|
Robert Metcalfe wearing the US National Medal of Technology (2003)
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| Born |
April 7, 1946 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields |
Computer networking Computer science |
| Institutions | MIT, Xerox PARC, 3Com, The University of Texas at Austin. |
| Alma mater |
MIT - B.S. Electrical Engineering, B.S. Industrial Management, 1969 Harvard University - M.S. Applied Mathematics, 1970; Ph.D. Computer Science, 1973 |
| Thesis | Packet Communication (1973) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jeffrey P. Buzen |
| Known for | Co-invention of Ethernet Local area network |
| Notable awards |
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Robert Melancton "Bob" Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an electrical engineer from the United States who co-invented Ethernet, founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's Law. As of January 2006[update], he is a general partner of Polaris Venture Partners. Starting in January 2011, he holds the position of Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of Innovation at The University of Texas at Austin.
In 1964, Metcalfe graduated from Bay Shore High School to join the MIT Class of 1968. He finally graduated from MIT in 1969 with two S.B. degrees, one in Electrical Engineering and the other in Industrial Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He then went to Harvard for graduate school, earning his M.S. in Applied Mathematics in 1970 and his PhD in Computer Science (Applied Mathematics) in 1973.
While pursuing a doctorate in computer science, Metcalfe took a job with MIT's Project MAC after Harvard refused to let him be responsible for connecting the school to the brand-new ARPAnet. At MIT's Project MAC, Metcalfe was responsible for building some of the hardware that would link MIT's minicomputers with the ARPAnet. Metcalfe was so enamored with ARPAnet, he made it the topic of his doctoral dissertation.The first version wasn't accepted. His inspiration for a new dissertation came while working at Xerox PARC where he read a paper about the ALOHA network at the University of Hawaii. He identified and fixed some of the bugs in the AlohaNet model and made his analysis part of a revised thesis, which finally earned him his Harvard PhD in 1973.
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