Tom Leighton

Tom Leighton co-founded Akamai Technologies in 1998, and served as Akamai’s Chief Scientist for 14 years before becoming Chief Executive. Prior to his role as CEO of Akamai, he was also a Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). As a leading authority on algorithms for network applications he established Akamai to alleviate Web congestion through the creation of the world’s largest distributed computing platform that dynamically routes content and applications across a network of servers. He holds numerous patents involving cryptography, digital rights management, and algorithms for networks. He has served on dozens of government, industrial, and academic review committees; program committees; and editorial boards. From 2003 to 2005, he served on the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC). He has published more than a hundred research papers and is the author of a leading text on parallel algorithms and architectures. He helped to initiate the Academy’s study on the Internet as Public Space. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and serves as a member of its Trust.