Christian Huitema
<Christian.Huitema@sophia.inria.fr>
http://www.inria.fr/rodeo/personnel/huitema/huitema.html

I have conducted for several years research in network protocols and network
applications. I am now at INRIA in Sophia-Antipolis, where I lead the research
project RODEO . The objectives of the project are the definition and the
experimentation of communication protocols for very high speed networks, at one
Gbit/s or more. This includes the study of high speed transmission control
protocols, of their parametrisation and of their insertion in the operating
systems, and the study of the synchronisation functions and of the management
of data transparency between heterogeneous systems. Amongst the output of the
RODEO project, one can count one of the most performant ASN.1 compiler,
MAVROS, and the IP based H.261 videoconferencing system, IVS.

Previously, I took part to the NADIR project, investigating computer usage of
telecommunication satellites, where I worked on the definition and
development of specialized ``transport'' protocol for the high throughput,
long delays and possibly multipoint links provided by the satellites -- this
was the subject of my doctorate thesis. I joined then the GIPSI project, where
I was in charge of developments of transmission protocols for the SM90
workstation, including a local network version of the X.25 protocol, a pre-NFS
``network disk'' protocol, an implementation of IP over X.25, OSI transport
and session layer software and one of the earliest X.400 systems. After
joining INRIA in Sophia-Antipolis, I took part to to the ESPRIT project THORN,
which has provided one of the first X.500 conformant directory system; the
initial developments of the ASN.1 compiler MAVROS was done within this
project. 

I have been active in Internet related developments since 1985, and am
currently participating to several IETF working groups. One of the first
projects I conducted after joining INRIA in Sophia-Antipolis was the
connection between this French Institute and the NSFNET backbone. This
was done in cooperation with Larry Landweber. The first satellite link became
operational in July 1988. This development, together with parallel efforts by
other French research organizations, helped introduce the Internet in
France. I was invited to join the Internet Activities Board in 1991. I was
then elected chair of the Internet Architecture Board in 1993.

The Internet has an immense potential. I believe it will become the ubiquitous
communication infrastructure of the twenty-first century, much in the same way
that the nineteenth century telephone became ubiquitous infrastructure in the
twentieth century. I have already been working towards this goal in my
laboratory, in the IETF and in the IAB. I would be very pleased to
continue serving the growth of the Internet as a trustee of the Internet
society.