Cerf, Vinton Gray

Cerf, Vinton Gray, 1943–, American computer scientist, b. New Haven, Conn., B.S. Stanford, 1965, Ph.D. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 1972. With Robert Kahn, he is responsible for the design and implementation of the Internet's basic communication protocols, Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Cerf taught computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford (1972–76), then worked as program manager in the information processing techniques office of the U.S. Dept. of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (1976–82). As vice president of digital information services for MCI Communications Corp. (1982–86), he led the effort to create the first commercial Internet email service. He subsequently has been vice president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (1986–94), senior vice president at MCI (1994–2005), and vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google (2005–). He also served (2000–2007) as chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

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