Four outstanding faculty members at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science were honored at the school’s 2016 Awards Dinner on Feb. 5, which was attended by more than 450 people and led by UCLA Engineering Dean Jayathi Murthy.

Leonard Kleinrock, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, was honored with the Lifetime Contribution Award for his seminal contributions to computer networking and creation of the Internet. Kleinrock joined the UCLA Engineering faculty in 1963, and in 1969 his innovations in the fundamental mathematical principles of packet switching led to his lab sending the first-ever message over what was then the ARPANET, predecessor to the Internet. His numerous awards include the National Medal of Science, as well as election to the Internet Hall of Fame, the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of six books and has supervised 48 doctoral students.

Adjunct professor Dan Goebel, a senior research scientist at JPL and a UCLA alumnus, received the Alumni Professional Achievement Award for his groundbreaking work in electric propulsion and developing thrusters for deep space exploration. His inventions have been used in the NASA Dawn missions to Mars and Jupiter, as well as other spacecraft. He is currently working on NASA’s asteroid redirect and retrieval mission. Goebel holds more than 40 patents, and in 2015 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Amit Sahai, a professor of computer science, received the Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award. An expert in cybersecurity who has helped many former students obtain high positions in academia and industry, Sahai revamped and invigorated the curriculum for a challenging undergraduate computational theory course, among other classroom contributions. Sahai joined the faculty in 2004.

Computer science professor Todd Millstein received the Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award. Millstein has earned accolades from students and colleagues for his interactive teaching methods and dedication to undergraduate and graduate students learning about software development and programing languages. He joined the faculty in 2004.

Additional awards went to three accomplished students. Learn more in the original story at UCLA Engineering.