Sally Floyd

Sally Jean Floyd (May 20, 1950 – August 25, 2019) was an American computer scientist known for her work on computer networking. Formerly associated with the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, she retired in 2009 and died in August 2019.[2] She is best known for her work on Internet congestion control, and was in 2007 one of the top-ten most cited researchers in computer science.[3][4]

For the comic book character, see Sally Floyd (comics).
Sally Floyd
Born(1950-05-20)May 20, 1950
Charlottesville, Virginia
DiedAugust 25, 2019(2019-08-25) (aged 69)
Berkeley, California
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Known forRandom early detection, Explicit congestion notification, Floyd Synchronization, Selective acknowledgement
Spouse
Carole Leita
​
(m. 2013)​
AwardsSIGCOMM Award
Scientific career
ThesisOn Space-Bounded Learning and the Vapnik-Chervonenkis Dimension (1989)
Doctoral advisorRichard M. Karp[1]

Biography

Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, Floyd received a BA in Sociology from the University of California - Berkeley in 1971. She received an MS in Computer Science in 1987 and a PhD in 1989, both from UC - Berkeley.[5] Her PhD was completed under the supervision of Richard M. Karp.[1]

Floyd is best known in the field of congestion control as the inventor of Random Early Detection ("RED") active queue management scheme, thus founding the field of Active Queue Management (AQM) with Van Jacobson.[3] Almost all Internet routers use RED or something developed from it to manage network congestion.[3] Floyd devised the now-common method of adding delay jitter to message timers to avoid synchronization.[6]

Floyd, with Vern Paxson, in 1997 identified the lack of knowledge of network topology as the major obstacle in understanding how the Internet works.[7] This paper, "Why We Don't Know How to Simulate the Internet", was re-published as "Difficulties in Simulating the Internet" in 2001 and won the IEEE Communications Society's William R. Bennett Prize Paper Award.

Floyd is also a co-author on the standard for TCP Selective acknowledgement (SACK), Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) and TCP Friendly Rate Control (TFRC).

She received the IEEE Internet Award in 2005 and the ACM SIGCOMM Award in 2007 for her contributions to congestion control.[3] She has been involved in the Internet Architecture Board, and was in 2007 one of the top-ten most cited researchers in computer science.[3]

Awards
  • 2007 - SIGCOMM Award from the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communications. Recognized as most prestigious award to a scientist in computer networking.[3]
  • IEEE Communications Society's William R. Bennett Prize Paper Award for "Difficulties in Simulating the Internet", by Floyd and Vern Paxson[3]

Personal life and death

Floyd's father Edwin was a mathematician at the University of Virginia. Floyd was married to Carole Leita.[4]

Floyd died at the age of 69 on August 25, 2019, in Berkeley, California, from gallbladder cancer that had metastasized.[4] [8]

Selected notable papers

References
  1. Floyd, Sally. On Space-Bounded Learning and the Vapnik-Chervonenkis Dimension (Thesis). p. 4.
  2. Internet Architecture Board. "Sally Floyd".
  3. "Sally Floyd Wins 2007 SIGCOMM Award", ICSI, Sept. 2007 (last visited Oct. 7, 2012).
  4. Hafner, Katie (4 September 2019). "Sally Floyd, Who Helped Things Run Smoothly Online, Dies at 69". New York Times. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  5. Sally Floyd. "Biography". Retrieved 2011-03-24.
  6. IEEE, "Sally Floyd", IEEE Global History Network (last visited Oct. 7, 2012).
  7. Albert-laszlo Barabasi and Jennifer Frangos, Linked: The New Science of Networks (Basic Books, 2002), p.150.
  8. Hafner, Katie (September 8, 2019). "Sally Floyd, Who Helped Things Run Smoothly Online, Dies at 69". Retrieved 4 August 2022.
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