Donald J. Becker is known throughout the international community of operating-system developers for his contributions to networking software. In addition, Becker was one of the founders of the Beowulf effort, which is the cornerstone for commodity-based high-performance cluster computing.

Becker's work in parallel and distributed computing began in 1983 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Real Time Systems group, where he designed performance monitoring hardware and system software as a participant in the MIT Concert Multiprocessor project. From 1990 to 1994 he was on the research staff of the Institute for Defense Analyses Supercomputing Research Center, working on parallel compilers, specialized computational techniques, and various networking projects.

In early 1994 Becker joined USRA-CESDIS at the Goddard Space Flight Center to start the Beowulf Parallel Workstation project. While at CESDIS, he not only lead the Beowulf team but also continued to contribute extensively to the Linux kernel, most visibly in providing very broad support for networking devices.

Becker is a co-author of How To Build a Beowulf: A guide to the Implementation and Application of PC Clusters (MIT Press, 1999) and a co-editor of the Extreme.Linux CD-ROM, the first packaged Beowulf software distribution. With colleagues from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Becker was the recipient of the IEEE Computer Society 1997 Gordon Bell Prize for Price/Performance. In 1999 Becker received the Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award, which is presented annually to individuals who, "in the spirit of innovation and cooperation, have made significant contributions to the advancement of software development."

Becker is a member of the board of directors of Scyld.

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