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Adjunct Professor David P. Reed's research focuses on designing systems that manage, communicate, and manipulate information shared among people. He is best known for co-developing the Internet design principle known as the "end-to-end argument" (with MIT Professors J.H. Saltzer and David D. Clark), and "Reed's Law," which describes the economics of group formation in networks.

Reed works with Andrew Lippman in developing the Lab's Viral Communications program, exploring the adaptive, scalable, and evolving wireless network architectures that have fascinated him for years. In addition, along with Lippman, David D. Clark of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Prof. Charles Fine of the Sloan School of Management, he has helped create the MIT Communications Futures Program.

A member of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, where he is an HP Fellow, Reed has also consulted widely to the computer industry, and has served as senior research scientist at Interval Research Corporation and as vice president and chief scientist for Lotus Development Corporation. Previously he was vice president of research and development and chief scientist at Software Arts.

Reed was a faculty member in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) from 1978 to 1983, working in the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS). He also earned his BS, MS, EE, and PhD degrees in EECS while conducting research at LCS and its predecessor, Project MAC.