John M. McQuillan (born 23 February 1949 in New York City1) is an American computer scientist who did studies of adaptive routing in the early ARPANET and the subsequent Internet.2
After receiving his A.B. in 1970 and a M.S. in 1971,1 he completed a Ph.D. in 1974 in applied mathematics from Harvard University.3 He was since 1971 employed at the computer networking equipment manufacturer Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, MA, where he programmed the Interface Message Processor,45 work that in part led to his dissertation Adaptive routing for distributed computer networks advised by Jeffrey P. Buzen in 1974.3 In his dissertation, McQuillan developed ways to reroute messages around faulty and congested areas in the based on delay feedback. These mechanisms were used in the first protocols from 1978.
