COMPUTER SCIENTIST PETER KIRSTEIN : 1933 - 2020

Professor Peter Kirstein, a British computer scientist who was widely recognized as the father of  European Internet, died on Wednesday at his home in London. He was 86.

Scientist Kirstein fashioned his pivotal role in computer networking the old-fashined way : through human connections. In 1982, his collegial ties to American scientists working in the nascent field of computer networks led him to adopt their standards to his London research lab.

Those standards were called Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, which  enable different computer networks to share information. Professor Kirstein embraced  TCP/IP  despite competing protocols being put forward at the time by international standard groups.

''Peter was the Internet's  great champion in Europe,'' said Vinton G. Cerf, an American Internet pioneer who was a developer of TCP/IP and a colleague and a friend of Professor Kirstein's.

''With skill and finesse, he resisted enormous pressure to adopt alternatives.''

Professor Kirstein was so avid a fan computer networking  that he gave Queen Elizabeth II, her own email address, HME2.

In 1976, while christening a telecommunications research center in Malvern, England, the queen became one of the first heads of state to send an email.

In 2003, when the queen made Professor Kirstein a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, he reminded her of that day in Malvern, and ''she smiled,'' he recalled in an interview.

When he built the University's email gateway to the United States in 1973, his lab became one of the first international connections on the Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet.

For the next decade he oversaw Britain's presence on the Arpanet.

The World Students Society thanks author Katie Hafner.