Ron Catterall
Ron Catterall has lived in San Felipe del Agua, Oaxaca, Mexico since March 1996.
Ron is a citizen of the United Kingdom, and has been an academic
most of his working life, with Faculty appointments in both the
USA and England. He obtained his first doctorate at Leicester
University in England. His first exposure to computer networking
was in 1971-2 when he assisted in the development of the
Generalised Academic Network in the U.K.
His research interests were in quantum
mechanics of semiconductors and magnetic relaxation studies of
muons, working with his graduate students at CERN in Geneva,
TRIUMF in Vancouver, ILL in Grenoble and the Rutherford and
Daresbury Laboratories in the UK. In 1976 he was awarded a
higher doctorate in recognition of his international reputation
in these areas. In 1976 he spent a sabbatical as Visiting
Scientist at the Atomic Energy of Canada at Chalk River, Ontario.
In 1984-5 Ron changed direction and moved for two years to Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman to build, establish and be the first Director of the Computing Centre of the Sultan Qaboos University. Whilst in Oman he also participated in the Royal Geographical Society's Expedition to the Wahiba Sands (the last unspoiled desert in the world), part of the empty quarter (Rub'al Khalih) in southern Araabia.
Returning to England in 1987, he was for a short time Support Manager for Racal Datacom, introducing Internetworking hardware into the U.K. In 1988, he returned to academia as Director of the Computing Centre of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and built the first Internet in the U.K. in 1989-90, to support Imperial Cancer's 40 research centers spread throughout the U.K., and incorporating the ICNET into the growing Internet.
From 1990-2 he was a founder member and a President of the U.K. Internet Consortium, lobbying continually for the U.K. to adopt the Internet standard, but it was not until October 1993 that the U.K. finally adopted the Internet as it's primary networking service. From 1992-4 he was a Director of his wife, Jacqui's company IPNetworking Ltd. and undertook consultancy work to many major corporations in the U.K. When IPNetworking was purchased by Interop, he and his wife moved to Sunnyvale in Silicon valley, California, where Ron became Director of World Wide Networking. Retiring to San Felipe in 1996, he helped establish the first Internet Service Provider in Oaxaca (Antequera Red), helped the Director of Research at Monte Alban computerize archaeological data, and from 1996-1999 designed and built the networking infrastructure for the Lerner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, establishing it as a node on Internet2.
Over the last few years Ron has been mapping the high mountain trails in the Sierra Juarez using the Global Positioning System.
Contact Ron by email.