Forest E. Johnson (born on May 17, 1899) was an American boat designer, boat builder and boat racer from Key West, Florida. He built his first boat at the age of 14. He would go on to build over 2,000 Boats and win many Awards and Trophies for his achievements as a Boat Racer.
By the time Johnson was 14 years old, he had built his first boat. Soon after, he was building outboard powered race boats and winning races with his own design. Johnson married Gina Navarro in Key West, Florida at the age of 19 and within the next 6 years had 3 daughters. He built and raced his own boats winning a 150-mile non-stop race from Key West to Miami.
In the 1920s, he mobved to Coconut Grove, Florida. His power boats were in high demand and his business, the Forest E. Johnson Boat Co. thrived. In 1935 Hurricane "Yankee" demolished most of his boatbuilding facility and he divorced from his wife In 1936, he moved to Miami and built a manufacturing facility on the Miami River where the company name was soon legally changed to Forest E. Johnson Boat Works. The brand name "Prowler" came from a friend in 1940 who made reference to his boats being not only fast but featuring a semi-vee hull that could operate in shallow water and "Prowl like a Prowler". ![Forest E. Johnson 26' Prowler](/Forest_E._Johnson_26"_Prowler.jpg "Forest E. Johnson 26' Prowler")
In addition to winning inland races and setting speed records up and down the eastern United States, Forest E. Johnson was also one of the Pioneers in starting the sport of Ocean Racing. He continued to be very successful at boat racing. One of his most notable victories came in 1958. He won the Ocean Powerboat Race from Miami to Key West, then set a record in winning the Ocean Powerboat Race from Key West to Havana - a record which stood for 57 years before being broken in 2015. 
In later years, younger drivers in Jr. Prowlers continued to win and set records. Renowned Boat Racing Drivers like Howard Hibbert maintained the Prowler winning tradition.
In 1956, Rene & Gale Jacoby, Wife & Daughter of Harry Jacoby (owner of Amazon Hose & Rubber Company) made the decision to enter Boat Racing. After successfully racing in inland events, by 1963 this mother-daughter team had a 31' Prowler and entered the Miami to Nassau Offshore Ocean Powerboat Race finishing in the middle of the pack. They soon followed up with a First Place Finish in the Production Class and Third Overall in a Miami to Key West Offshore Powerboat Race!
Many of the vessels Johnson built during his lifetime became classics, beginning in the early part of the 20th Century and continuing through prohibition, World War II, the 50s, and throughout the 60s.
Johnson built boats for the City of Miami, County, and State of Florida as well as the U.S. Navy. In 1955, Johnson drove one of his twin-engine 26' Prowlers from Miami, Florida to Nassau, Bahamas towing 22-year-old Delores Kipple non-stop on One Single Water-Ski. This World Record was set in 10 hours and 25 minutes, covering 200 Miles despite losing one engine near Nassau on board the Prowler "Tooky". 
Don Aronow, the originator of Boatbuilding Companies Formula Marine, Donzi Marine, Magnum Marine, and Cigarette Racing Team, was also a good friend and Johnson helped Don Aronow get started in the boat-building business in the early 1960s as referenced in a book "Don Aronow, The King of Thunderboat Row" by his son Michael Aronow.
By 1968, most all wooden hull boats had been replaced with fibreglass models. So, he ceased building wooden boats and made the change to build 23-foot and 32-foot fibreglass Prowlers until his death in 1971.
Johnson's son Forest Johnson paid tribute to his father, his father's boats, and the early days of Miami boatbuilding in an article about "The Life of Legendary Boatbuilder Forest E. Johnson" in Power & Motoryacht magazine (July 2015 Issue - Page 44).
Awards
1928: 1st Tahiti Beach Cup, Bay Hijacker II, B-Class, First Place
1928: 2nd Tahiti Beach Cup, Baby Hijacker IV, C-Class, First Place
1928: 3rd Tahiti Beach Cup, Biscayne Bay, B-Class, First Place
1928: Miami Herald Outboard Marathon, Miami Sunny Isles, B-Class 30 miles, First place
1928: Tampa Boat and Anglers Club, All Cat Class B, First Place
1928: West Palm Beach Outboard Trophy, Class B, First Place
1928: Palm Beach Yacht Club, Outboard Regatta, 2nd prize, Class B, Coconut Grove FL
1936: Albany - New York Motorboat Race, Inboard, Class E, First Place
1937: Biscayne Bay Regatta, Miami Cruiser, Second Prize
1938: Washington Birthday Regatta Gold Cup, First Place
1946: Biscayne Bay Regatta, First Place
1948: Biscayne Bay Regatta, First Place
1948: Glenn L. Martin Trophy
1951: New Martinsville Regatta, Inboards, W Virginia
1957: Nation's Top speedboat Drivers set for a 2-day launch Club Regatta; Hibbert, holder of the world five-mile competitive record for F service runabouts, defending his National crown in Forest E. Johnson's newest Jr. Prowler.
1958: Ocean Race, Regata Crucero a Motor, Miami to Havana, First Place
1958: Ocean Race, Miami to Havana, Speed Record, First Place
References
Category:1899 births Category:1972 deaths
Dhavan V. Shah is an American communication scholar whose research focuses on political communication, health communication, and computational social science. He is the Jack M. McLeod Professor of Communication Research and the Louis A. & Mary E. Maier-Bascom Chair at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he directs the Mass Communication Research Center (MCRC) and serves as research director for the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal (CCCR).
His work examines how media, discussion, and digital technologies influence civic engagement, social judgments, and health outcomes. Notable publications include the books Battleground: Asymmetric Communication Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin (2022) and News Frames and National Security: Covering Big Brother (2015), both published by Cambridge University Press. Shah was elected a fellow of the International Communication Association in 2016 and received its B. Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award in 2022.
Early life and education
Shah earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and mass communication from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1989. He received a Master of Arts (1995) and a PhD (1999) in mass communication, with a minor in political psychology, from the University of Minnesota.
Academic career
Shah joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 1998, becoming associate professor in 2002 and full professor in 2004. He was appointed the Louis A. & Mary E. Maier-Bascom Chair in 2006 and the Jack M. McLeod Professor of Communication Research in 2023.
Since 2010, he has directed the Mass Communication Research Center. Since 2020, he has served as research director of the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal, which is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In 2024 the center received a $3 million renewal grant from the Knight Foundation for 2024–2029.
Shah holds affiliate appointments in industrial and systems engineering, marketing, and political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has collaborated with the Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies (CHESS) since 2011 on digital health interventions.
He delivered the Robert M. Pockrass Memorial Lecture at Pennsylvania State University in 2023 and the William S. Morris III Distinguished Lecture at Texas Tech University in 2014.
Research
Shah’s research integrates experimental, survey, and computational methods to study political communication, framing effects, and health communication.
In political communication, he developed the communication-mediation model, which links media use and interpersonal discussion to civic participation. Through the CCCR, his work examines asymmetric media ecologies and their impact on civic life, as detailed in Battleground (2022).
His framing research analyzes how news coverage shapes public opinion on national security and civil liberties, as explored in News Frames and National Security (2015), which received positive scholarly attention.
In health communication, Shah has contributed to digital therapeutics, including a randomized trial of the A-CHESS smartphone application that reduced risky drinking days among patients recovering from alcoholism.
Selected publications
Books
- Battleground: Asymmetric Communication Ecologies and the Erosion of Civil Society in Wisconsin (2022, with Lewis A. Friedland et al.; Cambridge University Press).
- News Frames and National Security: Covering Big Brother (2015, with Douglas M. McLeod; Cambridge University Press).
Articles
Awards and honors
- B. Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award, International Communication Association (2022)
- Fellow, International Communication Association (elected 2016)
- WARF Named Professorship (Jack M. McLeod Professor of Communication Research), University of Wisconsin–Madison (2023)
References
External links
- Official faculty website
- Mass Communication Research Center
- Center for Communication and Civic Renewal
Category:Living people Category:American communication scholars Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Category:University of Minnesota alumni Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Michael D. Gurven is an American anthropologist and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is co-founder and co-director of the Tsimane Health and Life History Project, a long-running biomedical and anthropological study of the Tsimane people of the Bolivian Amazon. His research integrates biodemography, human biology, and evolutionary anthropology to study human life history, aging, cardiovascular health, the evolution of cooperation, and health effects of modernization. Gurven's findings on low rates of chronic diseases among the Tsimane and the evolutionary roots of human longevity have received widespread attention in outlets such as BBC News, Aeon, The Washington Post, and Scientific American. He is the author of Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer (Princeton University Press, 2025), which challenges notions of short ancestral lifespans and has been reviewed in Business Insider., Gizmodo., and Science..
Early life and education
Gurven earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in anthropology and mathematics from Pennsylvania State University in 1996. He completed his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of New Mexico in 2000; his doctoral dissertation was titled To Give and Give Not: The Evolutionary Ecology of Hunter-Gatherer Food Transfers. His primary Ph.D. advisor was Kim Hill. Early fieldwork and comparative research included work with the Ache, Hiwi, and Tsimane peoples.
Academic career
Gurven joined the UCSB Department of Anthropology as an assistant professor in 2001 and received tenure in 2007. He was promoted to full professor in 2011 and was named Distinguished Professor in 2024. He chaired the Integrative Anthropological Sciences unit from its inauguration in 2008 through 2022. He has served as Associate Director of the Broom Center for Demography and is core faculty in UCSB's Center for Aging and Longevity, and he is principal investigator on multiple NSF and NIH grants supporting work in demography, cardiology, infectious disease, and evolutionary medicine.
Research
Gurven is co-founder and co-director of the Tsimane Health and Life History Project (since c.2002), which follows thousands of Tsimane individuals and produces longitudinal biomedical and demographic data. Major findings include:
- Very low levels of coronary atherosclerosis among the Tsimane compared with many industrialized populations.
- Rapidly declining average body temperature in a tropical human population (2004–2018).
- Parasite infection patterns with measurable effects on fertility, immune function, and cardiovascular risk factors.
- Minimal evidence for a universal mid-life happiness dip in non-industrial populations.
- Evidence for slower brain aging and low arterial stiffness among elderly Tsimane.
Awards and honours
- Harold J. Plous Award for exceptional achievement in research, teaching and service, UC Santa Barbara (2004).
- Early Career Award, Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) (2010).
- Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2022).
Media and public engagement
Gurven has been featured in major outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Scientific American, Wired, BBC News, and Aeon, often discussing how insights from Indigenous populations can inform public health. He has been interviewed on NPR about cultural barriers to healthcare access among the Tsimane.
Selected publications
- Kaplan H., ..., Gurven M., Thomas, G. Coronary atherosclerosis in indigenous South American Tsimane. The Lancet. 2017;389(10080):1730–1739. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30752-3.
- Gurven M, Kaplan H. Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination. Population and Development Review. 2007;33(2):321–365. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00171.x.
- Davison R, Gurven M. "The importance of elders: extending Hamilton's force of selection to include intergenerational transfers". PNAS. 2022;119(28):e2200073119. doi:10.1073/pnas.2200073119.
- Gurven M, Stieglitz J, Trumble B, Blackwell AD, Beheim B, Davis H, Hooper P, Kaplan H. "The Tsimane Health and Life History Project: Integrating anthropology and biomedicine". Evolutionary Anthropology. 2017;26(2):54–73. doi:10.1002/evan.21515.
- Gurven M, Sarrieddine A, Lea A. "Health Disparities Among Indigenous Peoples". Annual Review of Anthropology. 2024;53:55–73. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-041222-101445.
Books
- Gurven, Michael D. Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer. Princeton University Press, 2025.
See also
References
External links
- Gurven Lab – UCSB
- Michael D. Gurven – CV
- To Give and Give Not – Google Books
- Seven Decades – Princeton University Press
Category:American anthropologists Category:University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Category:University of New Mexico alumni Category:Pennsylvania State University alumni Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Nick Feamster is an American computer scientist and the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, where he was the inaugural director of the Center for Data and Computing, later the Data Science Institute, and co-directs the Internet Innovation Initiative, which focuses on AI's impact on policy and economics. He is known for significant contributions to software-defined networking (SDN), early work in applying machine learning to network security and performance, broadband Internet measurement, Internet technology policy, and online education.
Early life and education
Feamster grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, showing an early interest in technology through participation in Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth, one of the first online education initiatives, where he completed AP calculus and physics in middle school.
He earned his S.B. (2000) and M.Eng. (2001) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and his Ph.D. (2005) in Computer Science, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral dissertation, Proactive Techniques for Correct and Predictable Internet Routing, received honorable mention for the George M. Sprowls Award. His doctoral advisor was Hari Balakrishnan.
Career
Industry work
Feamster was an early software engineer at LookSmart, where he developed the company's first web crawler, later acquired by AltaVista. He contributed to network security at Damballa, co-inventing botnet-detection technology covered by patents. He co-founded NetMicroscope, a company applying AI to network service management. He also worked on video transcoding at Hewlett-Packard, voice-over-IP technologies at Bell Laboratories, DNS technology at Verisign, and network management and fault diagnosis at Thomson.
In 2019, his research supported a Wall Street Journal investigation into Internet speed and streaming video quality.
Academic positions
Since 2019, Feamster has been Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, directing the Network Operations and Internet Security Lab and co-directing the Internet Innovation Initiative. After a 2005 postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University, he joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor, becoming full professor in 2014. In 2015, he returned to Princeton as Professor of Computer Science, having served as Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP).
Personal life
Feamster is an avid long-distance runner, having completed over 20 marathons, including Boston and New York, and earning three silver medals at the Comrades Marathon. He holds the fastest known time for an unsupported end-to-end run on the Chicago Lakefront Trail. He serves on the official pace team for the Chicago Marathon. He is also a musician who writes, produces, and performs his own tracks.
Research and contributions
Software-defined networking
Feamster is noted for significant contributions to SDN, with influential papers including The Case for Separating Routing from Routers (2004) and The Road to SDN (2014). His Router Configuration Checker (rcc) won the Best Paper Award at USENIX NSDI 2005 and laid the foundation for formal verification of network configurations. He teaches SDN through a Coursera course.
Internet measurement
Feamster's work on broadband Internet measurement includes the BISmark project, the world's first open-source router-based Internet speed test, deployed in over 30 countries. BISmark informed the FCC's Measuring Broadband America initiative and was extended through projects like PEERING and Transit Portal.
Machine learning for networking
Feamster made early contributions to applying machine learning to networking, including spam and botnet detection. His WISE system, developed with students, was deployed at Google for network scenario evaluation. Recent work includes NetDiffusion and NetSSM, applying generative AI to network management.
Network security
Feamster's security contributions include machine learning-based spam and botnet detection, covered by patents. He co-invented Oblivious DNS, deployed by Apple and Cloudflare to enhance privacy.
Online education
Feamster co-authored the textbook Computer Networks with Andrew Tanenbaum. He created one of the first MOOCs, which focused on SDN, for Coursera in 2013. He was one of four founding instructors for Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program, teaching computer networking, with course videos available on YouTube.
Technology policy
Feamster is an active contributor to Internet policy, having served as Princeton's CITP director and testifying before the FCC on broadband and net neutrality. He co-edited reports for the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) and advocated for ethics in computer science education.
Internet censorship and online speech
Feamster's early work on Infranet (2002) addressed Internet censorship circumvention. He founded the Workshop on Free and Open Communication on the Internet (FOCI) in 2011. He also teaches a course on censorship and online speech.
Legal technical expert
Feamster has served as a technical expert witness in litigation for many cases, and has testified in federal court on many cases involving a variety of issues, including copyright, patents, trade secrets, and other issues relating to security and privacy, including Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications (2019) and Splunk Inc. v. Cribl, Inc. (2021).
Awards and honors
- PECASE for cybersecurity contributions (2007)
- ACM Fellow (2016)
- ACM SIGCOMM Rising Star Award (2010)
- Technology Review TR35 Innovator Under 35 (2010)
- Sloan Research Fellowship (2009)
- NSF CAREER Award (2007)
- Best Paper Award, ACM SIGCOMM (2006) for network-level behavior of spammers
- USENIX NSDI Test of Time Award (2015) for SDN contributions
- ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference Test of Time Award (2025) for PEERING and Transit Portal
References
External links
Category:American computer scientists Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Category:Georgia Tech faculty Category:Princeton University faculty Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:American long-distance runners Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)