Henning Schulzrinne named ACM Fellow and recognized by ITC with service award

Henning Schulzrinne, the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Mathematical Methods and Computer Science, has been named a 2014 ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Fellow in recognition of “contributions to the design of protocols, applications, and algorithms for Internet multimedia.” He is one of 47 to be so recognized in 2014 for contributions to computing.

“I’m deeply honored to be named ACM Fellow. Indirectly, this also recognizes the contributions of all the IRT lab members over the years,” says Schulzrinne, in referring to the Internet Real-Time Lab (IRT) lab, which he directs and which conducts research in the areas of Internet and multimedia services.

It is the second honor accorded Schulzrinne in as many months. In December he received an Outstanding Service Award by the Internet Technical Committee (ITC), a joint committee of the Internet Society and the IEEE Communications Society. The award was given in recognition of excellent and extended service rendered to the fields of the ITC, of which Schulzrinne was the founding chair. He served from 1994 to 2000 and helped shape the agenda of the committee in its early years.

The ITC award, being given for the first time, acknowledges both Schulzrinne’s service to the ITC as well as service to the community through his foundational work on the key protocols Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) that led to the development of Voice-over-IP (VoIP).

The two awards are testament to his lasting achievements and the immense impact of VoIP and related technologies on society, and they follow on Schulzrinne’s induction into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013. Previous awards include the New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology and the VON Pioneer Award. He is also an IEEE Fellow.

In addition to his research, Schulzrinne is active in public policy and in serving the broader technology community. From 2011 until 2014, he was the Chief Technology Officer for the Federal Communications Committee where he guided the FCC’s work on technology and engineering issues. He continues to serve as a technical advisor to the FCC. Schulzrinne is also a past member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society and a current vice chair of ACM SIGCOMM. He has served on the editorial board of several key publications, chaired important conferences, and published more than 250 journal and conference papers and more than 70 Internet Requests for Comment.

Currently a professor within Columbia’s Computer Science department, Schulzrinne continues to work on VoIP and other multimedia applications. Ongoing projects look to create an overall architecture for the Internet of Things, limit phone spam (“robocalls”), make it easier to diagnose network problems, and contribute to a better understanding between engineers and public policy.