ISI Names Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan as Visiting Scholar

Visit will help commence network history research projects at the Postel Center

Marina del Rey, Calif. August 16, 2004. Internet historian Chris
Edmondson-Yurkanan, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Texas at
Austin, has been appointed Visiting Scholar at the Postel Center, Center Director Joseph D. Touch announced today. The Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California (USC-ISI) established the center to memorialize the life-long accomplishments of Internet pioneer Jonathan B. Postel and to encourage visionary research in networking and communications for the Internet community. Ms. Edmondson-Yurkanan will investigate the ARPAnet and Internet design histories by exploring the Postel Center Archives as well as by conducting interviews with Internet pioneers, and will augment the Postel Center website to provide the network community with access to early ARPAnet and Internet design documents.

The advisory board for the Postel Center elected Edmondson-Yurkanan based on her extensive development of Internet History resources, including coordinating 19 presenters and an accompanying 650-page notebook for a landmark tutorial on Internet History at ACM Sigcomm 1999, as well as creating the digital network history archive at the Univ. Texas at Austin. The archive contains key network design documents written as early as the mid-1960s. She has also created the Technical History of NetworK Protocols project (i.e. THINK Protocols), a 4-year effort to investigate and archive numerous related stories of Internet design, including the UK NPL Network Architecture (by Davies et al), ARPAnet (Telnet, FTP, Network Mail, RJE, routing, Host-Host, IMP-IMP), and the French Cyclades network.

Chris has been at the forefront of collecting both archival materials
and investigating the living history of the Internet, said Dr. Touch,
and her visit inaugurates the Postel Center's role as a premier
resource for Internet history for researchers everywhere.

Edmondson-Yurkanan has been at the Univ. Texas at Austin since 1984, where she teaches both technical and history-based network courses. She has served in various ACM Sigcomm roles, being its Conference Coordinator for nearly a decade and serving as its Secretary-Treasurer. She has chaired ICNP and the first Workshop in Hot Topics in Networks (HotNets), and serves on numerous steering and program committees.

Edmondson-Yurkanan received her bachelors in mathematics and masters in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin.

Postel Center

The Postel Center was established in April 2000 to memorialize the late Jonathon Postel for years of life-long accomplishments and
contributions. Jonathon Postel was at the forefront of many technologies developed over twenty years ago that today's Internet relies upon. A think tank for experienced scientists, educators and students, the Postel Center is dedicated to providing a place for long-term network research projects and is funded by an endowment from Cisco Corporation and other donors. More information is available at www.postel.org.