FACULTY AWARD: Rexford honored for work on 'glue that binds the internet'

Jennifer Rexford, chair of the Department of Computer Science, has been named the 2016-17 Athena Lecturer by the Association for Computing Machinery, the largest professional society in computing research and education. The award recognizes female researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science.

Rexford, the Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor of Engineering, is a leader in computer networking. Her research has focused on methods to improve and expand digital communications. Among other areas, she has contributed to advances in the Border Gateway Protocols (BGP), which enables communications across the many networks that form the internet. "BGP is the 'glue' that binds the internet together and Jennifer's innovations have vastly improved the BGP's effectiveness," Judith Olson, who heads the ACM organization that names the lecturer, said in a statement released by ACM. Rexford has also helped establish methods to improve the design and control of networks at multiple levels.