Biography and Credentials

gif

P.T. Bridgeport Bear from Pogo, Walt Kelly

Glad to meet you.

Education

BSE Engineering Science, University of Michigan), 1960
BSE Engineering Mathematics, University of Michigan, 1961
MSE Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan, 1962
MS Communication Sciences, University of Michigan, 1964
PhD Computer and Communication Sciences, University of Michigan, 1971

Employment

gifUniversity of Delaware (1986 - 2008), Newark, DE: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Professor of Computer and Information Sciences

Dr. Mills has been retired since September 2008, but continues as an Adjunct Professor with occasional research projects funded by JPL.

Dr. Mills teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in data communications, network protocols, computer security, electronic circuit analysis, digital systems design and computer architecture. He leads research projects in these areas sponsored by DARPA, NSF, US Navy, US Army and NASA/JPL.

He has for many years been an active contributor to the field of computer network time synchronization. Protocols he developed, prototyped and deployed have evolved to the Network Time Protocol (NTP), which is widely used in the Internet today.

He has been an active contributor during the technical evolution of the Internet since 1977 and served on several national level panels and advisory groups. His SIGCOMM 1999 tutorial [1] presents a technical history of the Internet and other adventures which include his contributions.

jpgLinkabit Corporation (1982 - 1986), Vienna, VA: Director, Networks
Dr. Mills directed and participated in internetworking research projects sponsored by DARPA and other government agencies. These involved research on network and internetwork architectures, protocol design and implementation, performance measurement and evaluation.

jpgCOMSAT Corporation (1977 - 1982), Washington, DC: Senior Research Scientist, Communication Sciences Laboratory
Dr. Mills directed and participated in the analysis, design and implementation of communication protocols and operating systems for the DARPA Internet Project, including a demonstration local network (DCnet) and internetwork hosts and gateways. He actively participated in the evolution of IP, TCP, TELNET, FTP, SMTP and related protocols which are now widely used in the Internet.

jpgUniversity of Maryland (1972 - 1977), College Park, MD: Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Dr. Mills participated in the analysis, design and implementation of the Distributed Computer Network (DCnet), which employed concepts of virtual operating systems, portable processes and novel communication protocols.

jpgUniversity of Edinburgh (1971 - 1972), Edinburgh, Scotland: Lecturer in Computer Science
Dr. Mills worked on the development of a front-end processor for the ICL 4-75 computer and on digital filtering and ionospheric modeling.

jpgUniversity of Michigan (1964 - 1971), Ann Arbor, MI: Research Associate, Computing Center
Mr. Mills worked on the specification and implementation of MAD/1 for the System/360, a follow-on version of a popular programming language for the IBM 7090. In addition, he was project leader and chief designer during development of the Data Concentrator, a special-purpose peripheral device for the attachment of interactive terminals to the System/360 Model 67.

jpgUniversity of Michigan (1959 - 1964), Ann Arbor, MI: Research Assistant, Electrical Engineering Department
Mr. Mills worked on sponsored projects involving radio direction finding, secure-speech transmission, frequency synthesis, and digital communication. He designed and supervised construction of an advanced analog/digital HF radio direction finder for the US Army.

Other Employment

jpgAs an undergraduate, Mr. Mills worked part-time jobs to help pay tuition, in particular as an announcer, disk jockey, recording engineer and FCC-licensed transmitter engineer for radio and television stations in Ann Arbor and Detroit, MI.


Reference

  1. Tutorial on the Technical History of the Internet. SIGCOMM Symposium (August 1999). PostScript | PowerPoint | PDF
gif