Interviews Deborah Estrin Dag Spicer Computer History Museum Editor: Dag Spicer Deborah Estrin is a computer scien- UCLA Computer Science Department was first growing. tist who has made major technical There were a lot of social interactions at my parents’ contributions to networking, mul- house, cocktail parties and dinners, and what became ticast routing, embedded sensing known as my father’s “Probability Seminar,” which was, and computing, wireless sensor net- of course, a poker game with Len Kleinrock and other works, and mobile and electronic faculty from CS. health. She has been a professor her My father was very affected by the women’s move- entire career, has served on count- ment, initially through my mother. I used to think both less panels and advisory boards, and my parents had their consciousness raised in the 1970s continues to mentor students in electrical engineering while I was in middle school and high school. But and computer science. She is one of the most accom- recently looking through some of my mother’s old let- plished and visionary people in computing today and ters, I realize that she was a feminist long before that. also the first professor hired at the Cornell NYC Tech Nevertheless, although my mother had done her PhD campus. In 2012, Wired magazine named her one of the at the same time as my father at the University of Wis- “50 People Who Will Change the World.” consin, her career had always come second, and I think that was one of my father’s deepest regrets. My father was probably the least sexist person I’ve ever met, of David Walden: Please tell me a little bit about your any age or gender. And that was a very powerful way to youth, the places you lived, and your early educa- grow up as a young woman. tion, family, hobbies, siblings, and so on. What were my hobbies? I did a lot of Israeli folk Estrin: I was born and raised less than a mile from here, dancing, and we spent summers and sabbaticals travel- on the other side of the University of California, Los ing together as a family around Europe and Israel, Angeles campus, to Thelma and Gerald Estrin. I have where my parents both had strong professional two older sisters, Margo and Judy. From the age of three, connections. I lived across the street from UCLA and went to the local My parents got married when my mother was 17 and public schools. I then went to UCLA my last year in my father was 20. They met when they were students at high school and on to UC Berkeley Engineering and CCNY [City College of New York] and were both active MIT. From my early childhood, I always remember my in political movements when World War II broke out. parents telling the story that I wanted to grow up and They had married before the hostilities began and were get my driver’s license and my PhD. This was at the age both studying history I believe. During the war, my of six or seven, reflecting both that I was growing up in mother started working in electronics—the Rosie the Los Angeles—where a driver’s license was an indication Riveter phenomenon. After the war, they both decided of independence—and that a PhD was the norm with to go on into electrical engineering and, through the GI the set of people they always had over to dinner and to Bill, went to the University of Wisconsin together and various social engagements. It was a time when the obtained bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees. Background of Deborah Estrin Born: 6 December 1959, Los Angeles cofounder (2011–present); Cornel NYC Tech, professor Education: BS (EECS), University of California, Ber- (2013–present) keley, 1980; MS (technology policy), Massachusetts Awards and Honors: National Science Founda- Institute of Technology, 1982; PhD (EECS), MIT, 1985. tion’s Presidential Young Investigator Award, 1987; Professional Experience: University of Southern ACM Fellow, 2000; American Association for the California, assistant professor (1986–1992), associate Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow, 2001; IEEE Fel- professor (1992–1998), professor (1998–2000); Univer- low, 2004; ACM-W Athena Lecturer, 2006–2007; Ameri- sity of California, Los Angeles, professor (2000–2012); can Academy of Arts & Sciences Fellow, 2007; Anita Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS), Borg Institute Women of Vision Award for Innovation, founding director (2002–2012); Open mHealth, 2007; National Academy of Engineering Member, 2009. 64 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Published by the IEEE Computer Society 1058-6180/14/$31.00 c 2014 IEEE Walden: The government can do some end I was more drawn to designing and good things. inventing things than to analyzing the impli- Estrin: Yes, very much so. And after the war, cations of what someone else had invented. at that time, anti-Semitism was a factor when they were looking for jobs. They ended up Walden: You also got a master’s from with John Von Neumann at the Institute for MIT, though. Advanced Study at Princeton. From there, Estrin: I did, in technology policy. And then I they went to the Weizman Institute in Israel; went on and did my PhD in Course 6 (EECS). Chaim Pekeris visited IAS and wanted a machine for his research and government Walden: Jerry Saltzer was your advisor, at use, so they brought my father over to run least for your PhD? the project and build the Weizac. Estrin: Yes, he was stickler for both vision and detail—quite a combination. Walden: After high school, you went on to Berkeley and chose electrical engineering Walden: Not for your master’s? and computer science. Was this because Estrin: Jerry was on my master’s project along it was your parents’ field? Often children with Marvin Sirbu. run away from their parents’ field. Estrin: Well, I ran away from them physically Walden: How did you end up working and left LA. I was about 17 and I remember with Jerry? my first phone call home to my parents from Estrin: At that time, Jerry was starting to have Berkeley was, “Why did you move to Los more multidisciplinary interests, so when I Angeles and raise me there?” I felt somehow went to look at the Laboratory for Computer a little bit more at home in the Bay Area than Science (since merged with the AI lab to form growing up in West Los Angeles in that era of CSAIL) for possible advisors someone Beverly Hills and Hollywood and all of that. directed me his way. He had an interest in Now the whole world is like that. cable TV and data over cable—this was It was a time when many more women 1981–1982. I did my master’s around data were doing things that were not just the tradi- communications over cable TV. I explored tional things they had done, and I loved math adapting multiaccess communication proto- and science. Also, I always had this drive to cols (such as what makes Ethernet work) to design and invent things. So with a desire to longer distance CATV networks as well as create new things, engineering and EECS was some nontechnical issues. In particular, back just a natural; so much was happening in then, there were all sorts of technological and terms of new technologies. And that became institutional questions about whether the even more true—that was really the draw. Mom and Pop cable operators were going to be able to upgrade their facilities and manage Walden: Did you focus more on hardware advanced data services. So I started that proj- or software there? ect with him and Marvin Sirbu, and then I Estrin: At the time, it was a double EECS continued on with my PhD with Saltzer. major but it was more software than hard- ware. In my last year, I had an incredible class Walden: What was your topic? with George Turin on the communication Estrin: The title of my PhD was “Intra- side of things. That really set the stage for my organizational Networks.” It was about doing interest in networking. Internet connectively across administrative boundaries and involved topics related to net- Walden: After Berkeley, you went to MIT. work security policies such as how to define What did you do at MIT? the access control and information flow rules Estrin: I got to Berkeley and went through it and mechanisms for remote operations inside quickly—I don’t know why I was in such a a different administrative domain. hurry. I had always had a little bit of my parents’ politics or activism in me so when I Walden: After graduating from MIT with went to MIT, I entered the technology policy your PhD, you ended up back on the program to study the social implications and West Coast at the University of Southern policy around technology. But I ended up California. doing my PhD at MIT in EECS (although it Estrin: I was hired at USC by then Chair was rather multidisciplinary) because in the George Bekey. That turned out to be a July–September 2014 65 Interviews tremendous stroke of fortune because, after a can do relevant work. I wanted to work in year or two, I started spending more time at areas where I felt there was a chance the work the affiliated ISI [Information Sciences Insti- would have impact and where I would have a tute]. It was actually Danny Cohen who, I better chance of learning from deployment think, said to Jon Postel and their group, “We and use.