Liane Tarouco

A pioneer in the development of the Internet in Brazil, Tarouco educated a generation of engineers and network specialists across that country, South America, Europe, and Africa. She authored the first book on computer networks published in Brazil, the 1977 textbook Redes de Comunicacao de Dados (Data Communications Networks), which became a core text in university computing programs throughout the country. A second text followed in 1986.

Beginning her network research in the 1970s as a professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Tarouco applied her expertise to build the Rede Sul de Teleprocessamento, the first initiative for interconnecting Brazilian universities. Though the project never received the funding it needed, it served as a model for networks to come. She later helped launch Rede Tchê, contributed to the metropolitan network MetroPOA, and collaborated on the design of the National Research Network, Brazil's first Internet backbone, in 1992.

Throughout her career, Tarouco supervised scores of dissertations and doctoral theses, and developed training programs in networks across Brazil and in Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, Portugal, and Mozambique. In the 1990s, she dedicated herself to research on Internet applications for education, expanding the innovative uses of the network for learning. She is considered one of Brazil's leading Internet researchers and teachers, responsible for training and mentoring hundreds of experts in networks and security applications.