Profile

Peter T. Kirstein was born in Germany in 1933. He grew up in England and obtained  his BA in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Cambridge University in 1954, a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1957 and a D.Sc. from London University in 1970. After a period at Stanford University, CERN in Geneva, and US General Electric Research and Development Center based in Zurich, he joined the University of London Institute of Computer Science in 1967, first as Reader and becoming in 1970 Professor of Computer Communications Systems. In 1973 he joined the Department of Statistics and Computer Science of University College London, In 1980 he was appointed as the first Head of its Department of Computer Science, a post he held from 1980 until 1994. For the following decade he was Director of Research. Currently he leads or participates in several research projects concerned with aspects of computer networks – e.g. satellites, security, IPv6 and multimedia. He is a Fellow in a number of professional bodies such as the Royal Academy of Engineering, British Computer Society, Institute of Physics, Institution of Electrical Technology, Senior Member Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Governor International Computer and Communications Committee.

Peter was awarded the ACM SIGCOM award and the IEE senior award - both in 1999. He was made an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002. He was awarded a CBE in the Birthday Honours list in June 2003. He received the Internet Society's Postel Award in 2003. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Royal Academy of^M Engineering and became an Honorary Fellow of UCL both in 2006.

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