Jim Kurose is a Distinguished University Professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he has been on the faculty since receiving his PhD in computer science from Columbia University. In 2023-2026 he is also an invited researcher at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. He received a BA in physics from Wesleyan University. He has held a number of visiting scientist positions in the US and abroad, including the Sorbonne University, the University of Paris, INRIA, Technicolor, and IBM Research. He has served in a number of administrative positions at UMass, including Chair of Computer Science, Dean of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and (currently) Associate Chancellor for Partnerships and Innovation. His research interests include computer network architecture and protocols, network measurement, sensor networks, and multimedia communication. He is proud to have mentored and taught an amazing group of students, and to have received a number of awards for his research, teaching and service, including the IEEE Infocom Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Lifetime Achievement Award, the ACM Sigcomm Test of Time Award, and the IEEE Computer Society Taylor Booth Education Medal. With Keith Ross, he is the co-author of the best-selling textbook, Computer Networking: a Top Down Approach (Pearson), now in its 8th edition. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE.

From January 2015 to September 2019, Jim was on leave, serving as Assistant Director at the US National Science Foundation, where he led the Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). With an annual budget of nearly $1B, CISE's mission is to uphold the nation's leadership in scientific discovery and engineering innovation through its support of fundamental research in computer and information science and engineering and transformative advances in cyberinfrastructure. Here is a blogpost on his NSF work. While at NSF, he also served as co-chair of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Subcommittee (NITRD) of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Technology, facilitating the coordination of networking and information technology research and development efforts across Federal agencies. In 2018, Jim also served as the Assistant Director for Artificial Intelligence in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).