Computer science alumnus Eric Burger (Ph.D. CS ’06) has been appointed chief technology officer (CTO) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Burger will advise FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and be the senior technology expert in the agency. The FCC regulates interstate and international communications through cable, radio, television, satellite, and wire.
“The FCC’s work lies at the crossroads of technology and policy. That makes it vital that we have at our disposal the technological expertise to make the right policy calls for the American people,” said Pai. “I am pleased that Eric has agreed to join our team and lend us his vast expertise.”
Burger has worked in the networking, communications, and computing fields for almost 40 years, encompassing networks, protocol design, secure communications, and the policy aspects of communication. Most recently, he has been a research professor at Georgetown University and the director of the Georgetown site of the National Science Foundation Software Engineering Research Center (S2RC), which conducts applied and basic research on software security, system security, and software technology. He is on leave from that position while serving as FCC CTO.
Before that, Burger was CTO and senior vice president of Neustar; deputy CTO and vice president of engineering for BEA, acquired by Oracle; and CTO of ShowShoe, Brooktrout, and Cantata, among other positions. He began his career as a research engineer at Texas Instruments. He has been published in many technical and standards publications, and he holds more than 20 patents.
In 2012, he received the Professional Achievement for Individuals Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for “sustained and collaborative support of communications technology policy.” He is a senior member of IEEE and was chair of the IEEE-USA Committee on Communications Policy. He also is a senior member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and a patron of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
