Frank Thomson "Tom" Leighton was born in 1956. He is an American mathematician and the chief executive officer (CEO) of Akamai Technologies, a company he helped start with Daniel Lewin in 1998. He also teaches applied mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Additionally, he is a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT.

Early life and education

Leighton's father was a colleague and friend of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, who is known as the father of naval nuclear propulsion and helped start the Research Science Institute (RSI). Leighton's brother, David T. Leighton, is a professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies transport phenomena.

Leighton earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 1978. He later received his Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981.

Career

Leighton found a way to reduce internet traffic jams by using math and computer science.

He developed algorithms for internet applications and has written more than 100 papers about algorithms, cryptography, computer systems, distributed computing, problem-solving strategies, and graph theory. He also has patents related to content delivery, internet rules, network algorithms, cryptography, and digital rights management.

Leighton is part of the Presidential Informational Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) and led a group focused on internet security. He serves on the board of trustees for the Society for Science & the Public (SSP) and the Center for Excellence in Education (CEE). He has taken part in the Distinguished Lecture Series at CEE’s main program for high school students, the Research Science Institute (RSI).

Awards and honors

• In 2023, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) gave Leighton the John von Neumann Medal for "fundamental contributions to algorithm design and their application to content delivery networks."
• In 2018, Leighton received the Marconi Prize from the Marconi Society for "his fundamental contributions to the technology and establishment of content delivery networks."
• He was elected as an ACM Fellow in 2018 for "his leadership in the establishment of content delivery networks, and his contributions to algorithm design."
• In 2017, Leighton and Lewin were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for Content Delivery Network methods.
• He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• In 2012, Leighton became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
• In 2009, Leighton became a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
• In 2008, Leighton was appointed as a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
• In 2004, Leighton was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the design of networks and circuits and for technology for Web content delivery.
• In 2001, Leighton received the IEEE Computer Society Charles Babbage Award.
• In 1981, Leighton was named the first winner of the Machtey Award.

Personal life

He is married to Bonnie Berger, a professor at MIT, an American mathematician and computer scientist, and they have two children.

Books

• Mathematics for Computer Science (written by Eric Lehman and Albert R. Meyer, published in 2010)
• Introduction to Parallel Algorithms and Architectures: Arrays, Trees, Hypercubes (published by Morgan Kaufmann in 1991), ISBN 1-55860-117-1
• Complexity Issues in VLSI: Optimal layouts for the shuffle-exchange graph and other networks (published by MIT Press in 1983), ISBN 0-262-12104-2