Vinton Gray Cerf ForMemRS (/sɜːrf/; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Bob Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that include the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Marconi Prize, and membership in the National Academy of Engineering.
Vinton Gray Cerf was born in New Haven, Connecticut on June 23, 1943, the son of Muriel (née Gray) and Vinton Thurston Cerf. Cerf attended Van Nuys High School with Jon Postel and Steve Crocker. While in high school, Cerf worked at Rocketdyne on the Apollo program for six months and helped write statistical analysis software for the non-destructive tests of the F-1 engines.
Cerf received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Stanford University. After college, Cerf worked at IBM as a systems engineer supporting QUIKTRAN for two years.

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