Peter Thomas Kirstein

A British computer scientist best known for playing a significant role in the creation of the Internet, Kirstein's research group at UCL played a significant role in the very earliest experimental Internet work. He was born in Germany but brought up in England. He received a B.A. from Cambridge University in 1954, an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University (in 1955 and 1957, respectively) and a D.Sc. in engineering from the University of London in 1970.

He was a member of the staff at CERN from 1959–1963. Kirstein did research for General Electric at Zurich from 1963–1967. He was a professor at the University of London from 1970–1973, and later joined the faculty at the University College London, where he served from that point forward, including as head of the computer science department from 1980–1994.

Early in the development of the Internet, he co-authored (with Vint Cerf) one of the most significant early technical papers on the internet concept. His research group at UCL played a significant role in the very earliest experimental Internet work. Kirstein was awarded the CBE for his work on the Internet.

He was also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. Kirstein also received the SIGCOMM Award in 1999 and the Postel Award in 2003, as well as various other awards for his contributions to the development of the Internet internationally.