Vinton G. Cerf

Science

California Connection:

b. 1943

• Stanford University and UCLA graduate and executive of Silicon Valley-based company

Achievements:

Biography current as of induction in 2024

Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. He has served in executive positions at ICANN, the Internet Society, MCI, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A former Stanford Professor and former member of the U.S. National Science Board, he is also the past President of the Association for Computing Machinery and serves in advisory capacities at NIST, DOE, NSF, US Navy, JPL and NRO. He earned his B.S. in mathematics at Stanford and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science at UCLA. He is a member of both the U.S. National Academies of Science and Engineering, the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and the Worshipful Company of Stationers.

Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards for his work, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, U.S. National Medal of Technology, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Japan Prize, the Charles Stark Draper award, the ACM Turing Award, the Marconi Prize and Marconi Lifetime Achievement Award, the IEEE Medal of Honor, the Legion d’Honneur, the VinFutures Grand Prize and the Franklin Medal. He is a Foreign Member of the British Royal Society and Swedish Academy of Engineering and holds 29 honorary degrees.

View more inductees from the 17th class, inducted in 2024.