Radia Perlman

Radia Perlman (born 1951) is an American computer scientist known as the "Mother of the Internet" for her work in the development of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and her contributions to the field of network routing and bridging. Perlman's work has been instrumental in the scalability and reliability of modern computer networks.

Invented the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges, while working for Digital Equipment Corporation. Has done extensive and innovative research, particularly on encryption and networking. She received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, among numerous others.

Radia Joy Perlman is an American computer programmer and network engineer. She is a major figure in assembling the networks and technology to enable what we now know as the Internet. She is most famous for her invention of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges, while working for Digital Equipment Corporation, thus earning her nickname "Mother of the Internet" a title that she did not like. Her innovations have made a huge impact on how networks self-organize and move data. She also made large contributions to many other areas of network design and standardization – for example, enabling today's link-state routing protocols to be more robust, scalable, and easy to manage.

• More recently, she has invented the TRILL protocol to correct some of the shortcomings of spanning trees, allowing Ethernet to make optimal use of bandwidth.