Computer scientist and technology visionary, Vinton Cerf is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet. He came to UCLA for his graduate studies because UCLA was one of the few places that embraced such radical new ideas in communication. While here, Cerf worked in famed Professor Leonard Kleinrock’s network group that connected the first two nodes of the ARPANet-the predecessor of the modern Internet. Since then, Cerf has been a leading force in every avenue of network communications-from the U.S. Department of Defense to a top executive at Google. Currently, Cerf is leading a NASA initiative to create the first interplanetary Internet-proving that reaching for the stars isn’t always an unrealistic undertaking.