About the Instructor Azer Bestavros received his S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1988 and 1992, respectively.  He is Professor and Chairman of the Computer Science at Boston University, where he conducts research on Networking, Internet/Web Protocols and Systems, and Real-Time Communication and Systems. Professor Bestavros has co-edited three books and has authored or co-authored in excess of 100 refereed technical publications. He is currently the Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee (TC) on the Internet, the editor-in-chief of the Newsletter of the IEEE-CS TC on Real-Time Systems and the General Chair of the IEEE Workshop on Hot Topics in Web Systems and Technologies. Professor Bestavros' past course offerings included Introduction to Computer Science, Fundamentals of Computing Systems, the introductory and advanced Computer Architecture courses, in addition to various seminars on Real-Time and Networked Information Systems. Professor Bestavros' research is funded through grants from the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, GTE, and Microsoft. Professor Bestavros' professional activities include his consulting work for a number of industrial labs and Internet startups.
	About the Teaching Fellow Georgios Smaragdakis received the Diploma in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the Technical University of Crete, Crete, Greece. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at Boston University, Boston, MA. His research interests include the design and analysis of Scalable Network Systems with main applications in Overlay Network Creation, Maintenance, and Resource Allocation and Sharing.