University of Texas at Austin Department of Computer SciencesDepartment of Computer Sciences
The University of Texas at Austin

Biographical Sketch

Simon S. Lam is Regents Chair in Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He received the BSEE degree with Distinction from Washington State University, Pullman, in 1969, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from UCLA in 1970 and 1974, respectively.

From 1971 to 1974, he was a Postgraduate Research Engineer at the ARPA Network Measurement Center, UCLA, where he worked on packet switching techniques for satellite and radio channels. From 1974 to 1977, he was a Research Staff Member at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. Since 1977, he has been on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin. He served as Department Chair from 1992 to 1994. His current research interests are in network protocol design and analysis, Internet security services, and distributed multimedia.

Simon was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking from 1995 to 1999.  He served on the editorial boards of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Computer Networks, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Communications, Proceedings of the IEEE, and Performance Evaluation.  He co-founded the ACM SIGCOMM conference in 1983 and the IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols in 1993.

Simon is a co-recipient of the 2004 Software System Award from ACM with the citation, "For inventing secure sockets and prototyping the first secure sockets layer (named SNP - Secure Network Programming) as a high-level abstraction suitable for securing Internet applications."

Simon received the 2004 SIGCOMM Award from ACM SIGCOMM for lifetime contribution to the field of communications networks with the citation "in recognition of his vision, breadth, and rigor in contributing to, among other areas: secure network communication, the analysis of network and multiaccess protocols, the analysis of queueing networks, and the design of mechanisms for quality of service."

Simon received the 2004 W. Wallace McDowell Award from IEEE Computer Society with the citation "For outstanding fundamental contributions in network protocols and security services."

He is a co-recipient of the 1975 Leonard G. Abraham Prize in the field of communications systems and the 2001 William R. Bennett Prize in the field of communications circuits and techniques from IEEE Communications Society. He is an IEEE Fellow (elected 1985), an ACM Fellow (elected 1998), and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (elected 2007).


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Personal   Simon S. Lam was born in Macau in 1947 with the family name ªL and the given name µ½¦¨ (Lam Sin Sing or Lam Shin Sing).   He moved with his family to Hong Kong in 1959.  He attended La Salle College, Kowloon, Hong Kong from 1961 to 1966.  He passed the Hong Kong English School Certificate Examination in 1965 and was awarded a Hong Kong Government Scholarship.  He took the University of London G.C.E. Examination in 1966 and left Hong Kong on September  7, 1966 on his way to attend Washington State University, Pullman, Washington.  He met his wife, Amy, in 1969 at UCLA.  They have one child, Eric.

Last updated, 12/18/2007