David Farber (1934–2026) was a Visiting Professor Global at Keio University Tokyo Japan and Co-Director of the Cyber Civilization Research Center at Keio. He served as Distinguished Professor at Keio as well as the Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, with secondary appointments at the Heinz School and EPP. He also held the position of Adjunct Professor of Internet Studies and was a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the University of Delaware.
In 2003, he retired from the University of Pennsylvania, where he held the Alfred Fitler Moore Emeritus Professor of Telecommunications with appointments in the Engineering School and the Wharton School.
His background included positions at Bell Labs, the RAND Corporation, Xerox Data Systems, the University of California at Irvine, and the University of Delaware.
From 2000 to 2001, he served as Chief Technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. He was a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), ISC (Internet Systems Consortium), BITAG, and the Stevens Institute of Technology.
At the Internet Society, he served two years as a member of the Executive Committee and two years on the finance committee, and served as co-chair of the CEO Search Committee.
Prior to his appointment to the FCC, he served on the U.S. Presidential Advisory Committee of Information Technology in the Clinton/Gore Administration.
He was awarded the SIGCOMM Award for lifelong contributions to communications and the prodigious Philadelphia John Scott Award for Contributions to Humanity, as well as an Honorary Doctorate from Stevens and a Pioneer of the Internet Society Hall of Fame. In 2014, he received the Stevens Institute of Technology Honor Award for notable achievements in his field.
Throughout his career he was involved with industry as a consultant and senior advisor. He served on the NTT Docomo Advisory Board and the Intel Corporation Security Board, and was a long-term contributor to Intel’s efforts to produce advanced secure computers. He also advised many companies including HP, IBM, Nortel, and the Government of Japan.
He was active in the startup space, including founding CFG Inc., one of the pioneering software companies.
Professor Farber passed away in February 2026. His contributions to the architecture of computer networks, his decades of dedication to Japan’s technology community, and his vision for a secure and open cyberspace leave a profound and lasting legacy.