Paul Mockapetris

Paul Mockapetris was born on October 24, 1955, in Pasadena, California. Paul received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UCLA in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from USC in 1982. Paul's dissertation was on the topic of internet protocols.

Mockapetris began their career as a researcher at Xerox PARC in 1982. Paul then joined the faculty of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, where they were a professor from 1984 to 1994. In 1986, they and their colleagues at USC ISI developed the Domain Name System (DNS), which is the system that allows humans to use easy-to-remember domain names instead of IP addresses. DNS is now a fundamental part of the internet.

In 1994, Mockapetris left academia to join the commercial world, co-founding the first DNS-focused company, Nominum, Inc., where they served as chairman and chief scientist. Paul then went on to work at Acorn Technology, Farsight Security, Inc., and ThreatSTOP, Inc. as an advisor. Paul is currently an advisor at Bolster.

Mockapetris has also been involved with ICANN, the organization that manages DNS, serving on the Chair Identifier Technology Strategy Panel from 2013 to 2015. Paul is a visiting scholar at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie and has also served as an advisor to UrbanMedia, timetra, and LignUp.

Paul Mockapetris received a PhD in Information and Computer Science from UC Irvine. Paul also holds a BS in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a HS in Latin, Latin, Latin, Physics, Chemistry from Boston Latin School.