Carpenter spent 25 years, from 1971 to 1996, working at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). He initially wrote software for process control systems and later served as the head of the networking group from 1985 to 1996, working alongside Robert Cailliau and Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web.[3][4] He took three years off of his CERN career to teach undergraduate computer science at Massey University in New Zealand.[2]
When Carpenter left CERN, he joined IBM, where he was an IBM Distinguished Engineer working on Internet Standards and Technology between 1997 and 2007. From 1999 to 2001 he was at iCAIR, international Center for Advanced Internet Research, sponsored by IBM at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Upon leaving iCAIR, he was based in Switzerland, first in Zurich, then Geneva.
Carpenter served from March 1994 to March 2002 on the Internet Architecture Board, which he chaired for five years.
In 1996, he edited an important memo on the Architectural Principles of the Internet.[8]
He has worked on IPv6[9][10][11][12][13] and on differentiated services[14][15] and served as the DiffServ working group chair. He also served as a Trustee of the Internet Society, and was Chairman of its Board of Trustees for two years until June 2002. In March 2005, he became IETF Chair, a position he held until March 2007.[16]
AM Turing's ACE Report of 1946 and Other Papers, Vol. 10 of Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing, B.E. Carpenter, R.W. Doran (eds), MIT Press, 1986.
