Congratulations to University of Utah School of Computing professor Jacobus (Kobus) Van der Merwe, who is one of six U faculty to receive this year’s Distinguished Research Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research.

The award was created to highlight the outstanding achievements of U research faculty. Nominees are evaluated on the “impact and significance of their career research, scholarly and creative work in their field, transformative achievements or innovations, and their history of broadening or enhancing equity, diversity, and inclusivity in their discipline, department, and/or research.”

“All of the [award] recipients this year are researchers of the highest caliber and purpose,” said Jake Jensen, interim associate vice president for research. “Their work has shaped — or reshaped — entire fields and disciplines. It is such a privilege to honor these faculty for their outstanding contributions.”

Recipients will receive special recognition during General Commencement and a $10,000 grant to pursue their research.

Van der Merwe received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electronics engineering from the University of Pretoria/Universiteit van Pretoria in South Africa and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Cambridge.

After 14 years with AT&T Labs Research in New Jersey, he joined the University of Utah as an associate professor in the School of Computing in 2012. He was then named a full professor in 2020. He is currently the director of the U’s Flux Research Group.

Van der Merwe has received the AT&T Science and Technology Medal in 2010 for his work on Intelligent Route Control and the USENIX Test of Time award for “developing a logically centralized BGP routing controller, which was an important step towards the centralized routing controllers of Software-Defined Networks”.

He is also the lead on Powder (the Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research), “a flexible infrastructure enabling a wide range of software-defined experiments on the future of wireless networks.”

Click here to see a list of all the Distinguished Research Award recipients for 2022.