Dr. Stephen Kent

Vice President and Chief Scientist- Information Security, BBN Technologies

 During the last two decades, Dr. Kent’s R&D activities have included the design and development of user authentication and access control systems, network layer encryption and access control systems, secure transport layer protocols secure e-mail technology, multi-level secure (X.500) directory systems, public-key certification authority systems, and key recovery (key escrow) systems.  His most recent work focuses on public-key certification infrastructures, security for Internet routing, very high speed IP encryption, and high assurance cryptographic modules.

 Dr. Kent  served as a member of the Internet Architecture Board (1983-1994), and chaired the Privacy and Security Research Group of the Internet Research Task Force (1985-1998), both now under the auspices of the Internet Society.  He chaired the Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) from 1990-1995 and co-chairs the Public Key Infrastructure Working Group (1995-).  He is the primary author of the "core" IPsec standards: RFCs 2401, 2402 & 2406 and their successor RFCs, to be published in 2005. He served on the board of the Security Research Alliance and on the board of directors of the International Association for Cryptologic Research.

 Dr. Kent chair\ed the committee on Authentication Technologies and Their Privacy Implications, for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council (2001-2003). He was a member of the CSTB-NRC Information Systems Trustworthiness Committee (1996-98), which produced the "Trust in Cyberspace" report.  Other NRC service includes the committee on Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities (1993-94), the Technical Assessment panel for the NIST Computer Systems Laboratory (1990-1992 & 2000-2005), and the Secure Systems Study Committee (1988-1990). The U.S. Secretary of Commerce appointed Dr. Kent as chair of the Federal Advisory Committee to Develop a FIPS for Federal Key Management Infrastructure (1996-98).

 The author of two book chapters and numerous technical papers on network security, Dr. Kent has served as a referee, panelist and session chair for a number of conferences.  Since 1977 he has lectured on the topic of network security on behalf of government agencies, universities, and private companies throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and the Far East.  Dr. Kent received the B.S. degree in mathematics, summa cum laude, from Loyola University of New Orleans, and the S.M., E.E., and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He is a Fellow of the ACM and a member of the Internet Society and Sigma Xi.