In Memoriam: David J. Farber, ‘Grandfather of the Internet’
David J. Farber, nicknamed the “Grandfather of the Internet,” passed away at the age of 91 on February 7, 2026, in Tokyo, Japan. The New York Times has described Farber as “an early architect” of the internet. His connection to the UC Irvine Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) is part of the foundation, not only of ICS but also modern computer networking.
Farber was born in 1934 in New Jersey and earned a B.E. in electrical engineering and an M.S. in mathematics from Stevens Institute of Technology, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in engineering in 1999. Prior to joining UC Irvine, Farber worked at Bell Laboratories, RAND Corporation and Scientific Data Systems. After ICS, he held academic positions at the University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University and Keio University in Japan.
Farber worked at UC Irvine in ICS from 1969 to 1975/1976 as a professor of information and computer science. In 1973, while at ICS, he conceived and directed the implementation of the first operational distributed computer system utilizing a token ring local area network — known as the Distributed Computer System (DCS) Project.
Farber’s influence extended to inspiring and encouraging his students, including ICS alumni Paul Mockapetris, who was noted by the New York Times for designing the Domain Name System (DNS) architecture that serves as “the address directory of the internet” and recently named #51 on the Forbes 250 America’s Greatest Innovators list; Marshall Rose, who has made influential contributions to the development and standardization of internet protocols; and Larry Rowe, who was involved with DCS from its early-stage conceptualization days and worked on its operating system while a graduate student at UC Irvine.
“I had some great mentors and heroes at UCI — Dave Farber, Tim Standish, Julian Feldman, Martin Kay, Ed Thorpe, and many more….The ICS department, a startup itself, welcomed me and jump-started my networking with the research community and local industry,” said Mockapetris. “Dave’s DCS project employed me and did an early version of cloud computing and a LAN hardware system that contributed to the design of IBM’s token ring. His biggest gift to UC Irvine was connecting it to the world’s research community. Dave created connections to NSF and ARPA. He personally connected me to Caltech, where I studied semiconductor chip design, and USC/ISI, where I learned about the Internet and where Marshall Rose and I set up UC Irvine’s first connection to the Internet. Amusingly enough, enthusiasm for that connection came from UC Irvine’s Thesaurus Linguae Graecae project so they could exchange ancient Greek texts around the world via email.”
Throughout his career, Farber was bestowed many honors. One of those includes being inducted into the Pioneers Circle of the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013. “Professor David Farber played a key role in many systems that converged into today’s internet,” states the Internet Hall of Fame website. “His early academic research work, at the Information and Computer Science Department of the University of California at Irvine, was focused on creating the world’s first operational Distributed Computer Systems.”
Farber was a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), IEEE and ACM as well as a recipient of the 1995 SIGCOMM Award for lifelong contributions to computer communications. He served on the board of directors for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the advisory board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, board of trustees of the Internet Society, and member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on High Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology and Next Generation Internet. He also received the 1995 SIGCOMM Award for lifelong contributions to computer communications and the Scott award for Contributions to Humanity in Philadelphia.
“We are grateful to David J. Farber for his groundbreaking contributions to computer science, the internet and to our school,” says Marios Papaefthymiou, dean of ICS. “His legacy lives on in the many students and colleagues he inspired, and in each of our lives as we benefit from the fruits of his visionary work. We extend our sincerest condolences to his loved ones.”
Links:
The New York Times obituary
Video: 2013 Historic Profile – Dave Farber – Internet Hall of Fame Pioneer
– Tonya Becerra