Ronald Johnson
Vice President for UW Technology
University of Washington

Vice President Ron Johnson is the University of Washington's principal technology/IT officer as well as a tenured faculty member in the Information School and the Department of Computer Science& Engineering.

Ron is actively engaged in many cyber-infrastructure and eScience oriented research and development projects involving Next Generation Network technologies and infrastructure, super-high-resolution and/or low latency broadband/HD video, international networking and ocean observatory submarine network technologies. That said, his day job, and most important and rewarding priority, is facilitating/enabling others in their research, learning, clinical, and outreach work.

Ron, who started his technology leadership career at UCLA, was directly involved in the creation of the NSFnet/Internet and is a co-founder of various organizations including Internet2, National LambdaRail, NorthwestNet (which was the initial 'ISP' for Microsoft, Nike, Boeing, Micron, Disney/Starwave, and hundreds of others in the Northwest), the Pacific NorthWest Gigapop, TransitRail, Pacific Wave, and the ResearchChannel, and he serves as a principal or co-principal investigator on a number of active research projects.

He has been a board member and a major participant in many other research and development activities such as the San Diego SuperComputer Center, TeraGrid, CineGrid, CENIC, and the Digital Well.

In an earlier era his teams developed key Internet technologies including Pine (one of the initial Internet-standards based email systems), the key elements of IMAP (a core messaging system component of most current email systems), and various forms of leading-edge high-resolution, as well as low latency, interactive HD streaming and on-demand media capabilities.

Ron is also Chairman of the Board of KEXP/FM radio (where 'the music really does matter'), which is widely recognized as an innovative, influential cultural force in the Seattle community and across the globe.

EDUCATION

M.S., USC (1975).
M.A., University of Chicago, Philosophy (1972).
Ph.D. Candidate/ABD, University of Chicago (ABD) in Philosophy of Science and Logic.