Professor Nick McKeown has been awarded the 2025 Marconi Prize 'in recognition for his fundamental contributions to high-performance switches and routers and to software defined networking and for transferring these contributions into widespread practice. McKeown exemplifies the spirit of Guglielmo Marconi by reshaping how we connect and communicate.'

Nick is the Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Sequoia Capital Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus. His scientific contributions have fundamentally transformed modern networking. He enabled scalable Internet routers, efficient switch fabric scheduling, virtual output queuing, buffer sizing, and network memory. Additionally, he co-invented software defined networking (SDN) through the Ethane project and OpenFlow protocol with Martin Casado and Scott Shenker, introduced the idea of programmable forwarding planes, and challenged traditional network architecture. McKeown’s influence extends to designing open-source platforms like NetFPGA and the P4 programming language, empowering researchers and developers around the world (excerpted from The Marconi Society.org).

Please join us in congratulating Nick on this well-deserved award.

Press release: The Marconi Society's 'Networking Researcher and Entrepreneur: Nick McKeown Named the 2025 Marconi Society Prize Recipient.'