David G. Messerschmitt is the Roger A. Strauch Professor Emeritus of EECS at UC Berkeley. He has served as the Acting Dean of School of Information Management and Systems and Chair of the EECS Department, and prior to 1977 he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories. Current research focuses on interstellar communications with application to interstellar space exploration and the search for technosignatures of alien civilizations. He is currently active in the StarShot Project for exploration of nearby stars sponsored by the Breakthrough Foundation. He is the co-author of Software Ecosystem: Understanding an Indispensable Technology and Industry (MIT Press, 2003), author of Understanding Networked Applications (Morgan-Kaufmann, 1999), and co-author of a widely used textbook Digital Communications (Kluwer, 1993). He is a co-founder and former Director of TCSI Corporation (now a division of Rocket Software), and has served on the Advisory Boards of the Fisher Center for Management & Information Technology in the Haas School of Business and the Directorate for Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering at the National Science Foundation. He has served as a member of the NSF Blue Ribbon Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, co-chaired a National Research Council (NRC) study on the future of information technology research, and served on the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of NRC. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal recognizing "exceptional contributions to the advancement of communication sciences and engineering".