Douglas Van Houweling

Doug Van Houweling is a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. He is best known for his contributions to the development and deployment of the Internet. For these accomplishments, he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2014. He is also the recipient of the EDUCAUSE 2002 Excellence in Leadership Award, the Iowa State University John V. Atanasoff Discovery Award, the Indiana University Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion, and an honorary Doctor of Science from Indiana University in May, 2017. Van Houweling was the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation from 2010 to 2014. Prior to that, he was the Dean for Academic Outreach and Vice Provost for Information technology at the University of Michigan.

Van Houweling has made fundamental contributions to the growth of the Internet and in areas related to information systems planning and management, not-for-profit organization management, strategic planning, simulation models of political and public policy processes, economic models of politics, and technology assessment. While serving as chief information officer at the University of Michigan and as chairman of the board of the MERIT Network, a statewide computing network in Michigan in 1987, he oversaw the operation and management of the NSFnet national backbone, an initiative supported by the National Science Foundation. This became the foundation upon which the global Internet was built. Van Houweling was also chairman of the board of Advanced Network and Services Corporation, a not-for-profit organization that enabled the transition of large-scale Internet capabilities from the higher education and research realm to commercial reality. From 1997 to 2010, he served as chief executive officer of Internet2, the national research and education network for the United States.

Doug Van Houweling received his B.A. in government from Iowa State University in 1965. He received his PhD in government from Indiana University in 1974, where he was advised by Elinor Ostrom. He held positions in computing services at Cornell University from 1976 to 1981 then moved to Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked from 1981 to 1984. He moved to the University of Michigan as an adjunct professor and vice provost of information technology in 1984. He has been a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information since 1995.