Dr. John C. Klensin is now an independent consultant following a distinguished career as the Internet Architecture Vice President at AT&T, Distinguished Engineering Fellow at MCI WorldCom, and Principal Research Scientist at MIT.
He served on the Internet Architecture Board from 1996-2002 and was its Chair from 2000 until the end of his term. Earlier, he served as IETF Area Director for Applications and was Chair, Co-chair, and/or Editor for IETF Working Groups focused on messaging and IETF process issues.
Mr. Klensin understands technology issues germane to ICANN first hand. He was involved in the early procedural and definitional work for DNS administration and top-level domain definitions and was part of the committee that worked out the transition of DNS-related responsibilities between USC-ISI and what became ICANN.
Prior to coming to MCI in mid-1994, he was INFOODS Project Coordinator for the United Nations University and, before that, was at MIT for nearly 30 years, holding Principal Research Scientist appointments in several departments including Architecture, the Center for International Studies, and the Laboratory of Architecture and Planning.
For most of those 30 years, he was a technical participant in programming language standardization efforts. He has also participated in, and sometimes led, industry consortia, scientific, and quasi-governmental efforts that resulted in de facto standards. For example, he was a member of the Advisory Council and of the first ad hoc committees on procedures of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Despite this background in standards development and procedures, his primary work has focused on technical and design efforts, both as research and in product development and support. For example, industrially, he was the lead designer for several user-visible aspects of Internet MCI, designed database and data analysis systems used by several large international corporations and governmental units (including the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the US and the Department of Social Justice in The Netherlands) in the 1970s and 1980s.
These major contributions went to manage inventories, planning, and human resource models for two of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers and one oil company, and for several activities of the US Department of Defense including fuel supply availability planning during the oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the development and management of the DOD budget itself.
He was also founding co-principal investigator of the Network Start-up Resource Center project, which provides technical assistance for creation of computer network connections to developing areas and continues as a senior advisor to that activity.
Mr. Klensin has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Science Education and Technology and the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.
The Internet Engineering Task Force selected John Klensin as non-voting liaison to the ICANN Board. His current term will end after the conclusion of ICANN’s annual meeting in 2004.
