A veteran faculty member at the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Zegura has made considerable contributions to the development of wide-area (internet) networking services and mobile wireless networking. In addition to her research offerings, Zegura served as the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN) and the inaugural chair of the School of Computer Science.

“It is humbling to be nominated and to receive this recognition,” Zegura said. “Diversity and inclusion are important in any field, and I am proud that networking has chosen to highlight female researchers.

Today, Zegura is the Stephen Fleming Chair in Telecommunication, and she is the co-creator for the College of Computing’s Computing for Good (C4G) program. She also helped to establish the Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) Atlanta program. Both programs are project-based research efforts in which students use computer science to help solve societal problems.

“Ellen's inclusion on this list of influential networking researchers is well deserved and further indication of the high-caliber, world-class faculty at Georgia Tech,” said SCS Chair and Professor Lance Fortnow.

Multiple nominations from the world over were submitted for inclusion on the list, with preference given to women who made a “major impact” in networking and/or communications in the past year.