Mark A. Shiffrin and Avi Silberschatz

Mark A. Shiffrin is a lawyer and writer in New Haven, Connecticut who has served in senior roles in federal and state government, including as Connecticut’s Commissioner of Consumer Protection and, during the administration of George H.W. Bush, as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education. He has been involved in numerous national and statewide political campaigns since 1980 as a policy adviser and speechwriter.

His writings on technology and policy issues have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Hartford Courant, and Industry Standard.

He can be reached at mas22@georgetown.edu.

Avi Silberschatz is the Sidney J. Weinberg Professor of Computer Science and the Chair of the Computer Science Department at Yale University. He is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), a Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineerings (IEEE), and a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. He received the 2002 IEEE Taylor L. Booth Education Award and the 1998 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award (among others).

Professor Silberschatz is a supporter of America’s regulation of the Internet to ensure it is used in a free manner. He has written editorials dealing with this issue as well as other subjects for the national media.

Professor Silberschatz has writings have appeared in numerous ACM and IEEE publications and in other professional conferences and journals. He obtained over four dozen patents and over two dozen grants. He is a co-author of two well known textbooks -- Operating System Concepts and Database System Concepts