David J. Farber
American computer scientist in Japan (1934–2026)
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Life and career
Farber was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on April 17, 1934. From an early age, encouraged by his father, Farber tinkered with electronics, building radio sets from kits. He graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology with a B.E. degree in electrical engineering in 1956 and a M.S. degree in mathematics in 1961. He then began an 11-year career at Bell Laboratories, where he helped design the first electronic switching system (ESS-1) and the SNOBOL programming languages. He subsequently held industry positions at the Rand Corporation and Scientific Data Systems, followed by academic positions at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Delaware, and Carnegie Mellon University. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering from the Stevens Institute in 1999.
At Irvine his research work was focused on creating the world's first operational distributed computer system. While a member of the electrical engineering department of the University of Delaware, he helped conceive and organize the major American research networks CSNET, NSFNet, and the National Research and Education Network (NREN). He helped create the NSF/DARPA-funded Gigabit Network Test bed Initiative and served as the Chairman of the Gigabit Test bed Coordinating Committee.
Farber subsequently was appointed Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also held appointments as professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School of Business, and as a faculty associate of the Annenberg School for Communication. Farber served as chief technologist at the US Federal Communications Commission (2000–2001) while on leave from the university. In 2018, he moved to Japan to become Distinguished Professor at Keio University and Co-Director of the Keio Cyber Civilization Research Center (CCRC).
He was a founding editor of ICANNWatch. He served on the board of advisers of Context Relevant and The Liquid Information Company. He was one of the founding board members of the Internet Systems Consortium, and had served on that board since 1994.
Farber died in Tokyo from heart failure on February 7, 2026, at the age of 91. At the time of his death, Farber was employed as a professor at Keio University.
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Honors and community service
Throughout his life, Farber developed a reputation for connecting people and problems that needed to be solved.
Farber was an AAAS Fellow, IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, and recipient of the 1995 SIGCOMM Award for lifelong contributions to computer communications. He served on the board of directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center advisory board, the board of trustees of the Internet Society, and was a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on High Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology and Next Generation Internet. He ran a large (25,000+ readership) mailing list called Interesting-People. In 2012, in memory of his son, he established the Joseph M. Farber prize at the Stevens Institute of Technology, which recognizes a graduating senior majoring in one of the disciplines of the College of Arts and Letters who displays a keen interest in and concern for civil liberties and their importance in preserving and protecting human rights.
On August 3, 2013, Farber was inducted into the Pioneers Circle of the Internet Hall of Fame. He was elected as the AAAS Fellow by the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018.