Stevens Community Gathers to Honor the 'Grandfather of the Internet'
A memorial service on May 17 celebrated the life and legacy of David J. Farber ’56 M.S. ’61 Hon. D.Eng. ’99, a pioneering computer scientist and beloved member of the Stevens community
On a Sunday afternoon in May, the Tech Flex Auditorium at Stevens Institute of Technology filled with family members, colleagues and friends — from Hoboken to Tokyo — to remember one of the most influential figures in the history of computing.
David J. Farber ’56 M.S. ’61 Hon. D.Eng. ’99, widely known as the “Grandfather of the Internet,” passed away on Feb. 7, 2026, at the age of 91, still teaching at Keio University in Tokyo just weeks before his death. The May 17 memorial service brought together those who knew him across six decades of professional and personal life, with several speakers joining via recorded video from the United States and from Japan.
Stevens Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Jianmin Qu, who served as emcee, opened the program by describing Farber as “a pioneer in networking and computing whose curiosity and generosity left a lasting imprint on all who worked with him.” A moment of silence preceded remarks from Stevens President Nariman Farvardin, whose tribute drew on more than a decade of close friendship.
“David Farber was a visionary pioneer, an educator and one of the great innovators of the digital age,” Farvardin told those gathered. “To us, he was something even more personal — a beloved member of the Stevens family.”
Farvardin shared a story that drew quiet laughter and knowing nods. On a Zoom call to mark Farber’s 90th birthday, he had asked what Farber missed most from the United States. After a pause, the answer came: New York bagels. Farber, characteristically, offered a precise technical explanation — flour regulations, texture, the whole science of it. Farvardin arranged an overnight shipment. Farber’s reply email, which Farvardin said he still has: “I got the bagels and the cream cheese. Yum yum. Thanks.”
“Wherever he was, he was fully alive,” Farvardin said. “Curious, good-humored and still engaged with the world.”
Farber's son Manny spoke of his father with warmth and wit, sharing fond memories from family life and playing audio clips from memoirs Farber recorded in 2012 — one reminiscing about his senior project at Stevens, another reflecting on his time at Bell Labs at the intersection of telecommunications and computer systems. He traced a life that touched nearly every chapter of the internet's history, from Bell Labs and the early electronic switching system, to the early internet research networks that would eventually become the modern web, to his final years co-directing the Cyber Civilization Research Center at Keio University.
Video tributes came from figures whose own careers Farber had helped shape.
Paul Mockapetris, the inventor of DNS — the technology that makes it possible to navigate the internet by name rather than number — called himself one of Farber’s “virtual children.”
Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google and co-designer of the foundational protocols of the modern internet, held up his Internet Hall of Fame lapel pin and shared a favorite “Farberism”: Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
Larry Landweber, a co-founder of CSNet, an early academic network that helped expand internet access beyond its military origins, detailed Farber’s critical role in steering internet policy at pivotal moments.
From Japan, Jun Murai, who worked alongside Farber to connect Japan to the early internet, noted that Farber had submitted grades for his Keio class just two days before he passed
Jiro Kokuryo, the Keio vice president who recruited Farber to Japan in 2018, spoke of the deep affection Farber developed for Tokyo and his Japanese colleagues.
In person, University of Pennsylvania professor Jonathan Smith described being recruited to academia by Farber after a chance encounter at a workshop — Farber approached him after his talk, expressed interest in his research and asked whether he had ever considered a career in academia. The two went on to collaborate at Penn on research that helped push the boundaries of network speed and capacity.
Kelland Thomas, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Stevens, spoke about Farber’s deep concern for civil liberties and his conviction that technologists bear responsibility for the social consequences of their work. Thomas highlighted Farber’s investment in the school through the David and GG Farber Junior Faculty Fellowship in Science Technology Studies and the Joseph M. Farber Memorial Prize — named for Farber's son Joe, an attorney known for his own commitment to civil liberties — as well as the David and GG Farber Chair in Computer Science and the David and GG Farber Societal Impact Prize. Thomas recalled that Farber once told him he had resented his required humanities courses as a Stevens undergraduate, but that by the end of his life, those were the lessons he thought about most.
The program featured reflections from other family members. Carol Hagan, widow of Farber’s younger son Joe, spoke of his devotion to his grandsons, and nieces Kathy and Helen Zalantis remembered an uncle who once stood in the middle of the street with a shoebox-sized GPS device in the early 1980s, excitedly announcing the family’s exact longitude and latitude to a crowd that had no idea they were witnessing the future. Farber’s daughter-in-law Mei Xu spoke of his impact as an educator and father.
Journalist and author Dan Gillmor, who became a close friend during Farber’s years in Japan, offered the evening’s quiet coda. “For so many times, the meals were the catalyst of something much more important,” he said. “The catalyst was the community that he constantly was building and enjoying. And nurturing. Because that community did such fine stuff around the world.”
Farber is survived by his son Manny, his daughter-in-law Mei, his daughter-in-law Carol Hagan, and his grandsons Nate and Sam.
Those who wish to honor Dr. Farber’s memory through a gift may direct donations to the David and GG Farber Term Fellowship in HASS.
