Don Towsley Wins 2008 ACM SIGCOMM Award

University of Massachusetts - Amherst Professor Don Towsley was awarded the
highest honor from ACM SIGCOMM, ACM's Special Interest Group on Data
Communications, for his contributions to the modeling, analysis, and control
of communication networks in the computer networking field. His research
and leadership have helped shape an era of networking research and practice
built upon a deeper scientific basis than in the past.

The ACM SIGCOMM Award recognizes lifetime achievement in and contributions to the
field of computer networking. It is awarded annually to a person whose work,
over the course of his or her career, represents a significant contribution
to the field and a substantial influence on the work and perceptions of others
in the field. Dr. Towsley will receive his award and deliver a keynote
address at the ACM SIGCOMM annual conference in Seattle on Tuesday, August 19.

Over a sustained and continuous research career spanning three decades, Towsley,
who is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, has made innovative and pioneering
contributions in developing foundational modeling and analysis techniques that have
enabled a better understanding of some of the most important aspects of today's
computer networks, network protocols and networked applications. His research
contributions, embodied in part by a collection of nearly 200 journal papers
that he has authored, exhibit great diversity across scientific disciplines and
include a staggering list of collaborators. Highlights of his seminal work
include the first empirically-validated analytical model of the TCP protocol,
foundational work on network tomography to infer internal network behavior based
on end-to-end observations with statistical rigor, the use of fluid models and
stochastic differential equations to elucidate network performance in the presence
of competing sessions, methods to smooth and streamline delivery of multimedia
content across the Internet, and key contributions to advance the state of the
art in reliable multicast protocol design. His work has had enormous impact,
as evidenced by the many subsequent research and implementation efforts that
build upon groundwork laid by his findings, as well as by extensive references
to his work.

Don is equally well-known for his dedicated, long-standing service to the
community. In addition to the dozens of students he has mentored, many of whom
have made lasting contributions to the field of their own, and the active
encouragement he has provided in collaborations with so many others,
he has also organized numerous workshops and symposia, served on editorial
boards for top journals and countless technical program committees,
and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on
Networking journal.

Dr. Towsley is a Fellow of the ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and is the
recipient of the 2007 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award,
the 2007 ACM SIGMETRICS Achievement Award, and the 1999 IEEE Communications
Society William Bennett Award.