John Silvester

John Silvester was born in Kent, England in 1950. He received his B.A. (M.A.) in Mathematics and Operations Research from the University of Cambridge in 1971 (1975); the M.S. in Statistics and Computer Science form West Virginia University in 1973; and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 1980. He lives with his wife and two children in West Los Angeles.

Since 1979 he has been at the University of Southern California where he is Vice Provost of Scholarly Technology and Professor of Electrical Engineering. He was Vice-Provost of Academic Computing from 1994-1997 and Director of the Computer Engineering Division from 1984-90. He is Chair of the Board of Directors at CENIC (Consortium for Educational Networks in California), which is building Calren2 - the California part of the Internet2. He was a member of the California Virtual University Design. He is a member of the advisory board of the Advanced Biotechnical Consortium, which is involved with telemedicine and other applications of technology to the health sciences. He has served on the Board of Directors of Team Santa Monica - a community-based competitive youth swimming team and was Vice-President from 1996-1998.

As Vice Provost of Scholarly Technology, he serves as the faculty/administration interface for the development of strategic plans for the effective use of information technology to support the academic mission of the University and is responsible for working with the CIO and campus technology providers to implement these plans. Areas of responsibility include distance learning, instructional technology, high performance computing and communications, digital library, research and instructional computing.

As Professor of Electrical Engineering, he teaches course in Broadband Networks, Computer Network Protocols, Teletraffic Analysis, and Computer Network Design and Analysis. These courses are offered in traditional classroom mode as well as over the USC School of Engineering Instructional Television Network. He has also taught short courses in data communications and networks. Recent research interests include traffic modeling, high-speed networks, and wireless packet networks. He is the author of over 100 technical papers and has lectured in both the United States and abroad.