F. Thomson Leighton

Last updated
Frank Thomson Leighton
FTL 2022.jpg
Born (1956-10-28) October 28, 1956 (age 67)
Nationality American
Alma mater Princeton University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Spouse Bonnie Berger
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Applied mathematics
Institutions Akamai Technologies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis Layouts for the shuffle-exchange graph and lower bound techniques for VLSI  (1981)
Doctoral advisor Gary Miller
Doctoral students Peter Shor, Mohammad Hajiaghayi, Robert Kleinberg, Satish Rao [1]

Frank Thomson "Tom" Leighton (born 1956) is the CEO of Akamai Technologies, the company he co-founded with the late Daniel Lewin in 1998. [2] As one of the world's preeminent authorities on algorithms for network applications and cybersecurity, Dr. Leighton discovered a solution to free up web congestion using applied mathematics and distributed computing. [3]

Contents

He is on leave as a professor of applied mathematics and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 1978, and his Ph.D. in Mathematics from MIT in 1981. [4] His brother David T. Leighton is a full professor at the University of Notre Dame, specializing in transport phenomena. [5] Their father was a U.S. Navy colleague and friend of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of naval nuclear propulsion and a founder of the Research Science Institute (RSI).

Dr. Leighton has served on numerous government, industry, and academic advisory panels, including the Presidential Informational Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) and chaired its subcommittee on cybersecurity. [6] He serves on the board of trustees of the Society for Science & the Public (SSP) and of the Center for Excellence in Education (CEE), and he has participated in the Distinguished Lecture Series at CEE's flagship program for high school students, the Research Science Institute (RSI).

Awards and honors

Personal life

He is married to the MIT professor Bonnie Berger, [13] [14] and they have two children.[ citation needed ]

Books

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References

  1. "F. Thomson (Frank) Leighton". Mathematics Genealogy Project. Department of Mathematics, North Dakota State University. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
  2. Erik Nygren, Ramesh Sitaraman, and Jennifer Sun. "The Akamai Network: A Platform for High-Performance Internet Applications, ACM SIGOPS" (PDF). Operating Systems Review. 44. July 2010.
  3. "National Inventors Hall of Fame". www.invent.org. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  4. Leighton, Frank Thomson (1981). Layouts for the shuffle-exchange graph and lower bound techniques for VLSI (Ph.D.). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. OCLC   4433998366 via ProQuest.
  5. "David Leighton — College of Engineering". Engineering.nd.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  6. "Dr. Tom Leighton, CEO | Executive Team". Akamai.com. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  7. "CSAIL pioneer Tom Leighton awarded IEEE John von Neumann Medal" MIT CSAIL News, December 2, 2022
  8. "Professor Tom Leighton wins 2018 Marconi Prize" MIT News, March 23, 2018.
  9. 2018 ACM Fellows Honored for Pivotal Achievements that Underpin the Digital Age, Association for Computing Machinery, December 5, 2018
  10. "Professor Tom Leighton and Danny Lewin SM ’98 named to National Inventors Hall of Fame," MIT News, February 2, 2017.
  11. "List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society". Ams.org. 2015-04-13. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  12. "Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)". siam.org.
  13. Eisenberg, David (July 28, 2022). "Bonnie Berger '83 Establishes Junior Professorship in Mathematics with $2.5 Million Gift". Brandeis.
  14. "A renewed home for the MIT Mathematics Department". MIT Science. June 10, 2016.