In 1992-93, he was a Visiting Associate Professor of Computer Science in the Computer Networks Research Group at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In 1999-2000, he was a Visiting Scholar in Computer Science at Harvard University. In 2001 and 2002, Dr. Vastola was on leave from RPI as the Chief Technology Officer of Premonitia, Inc., a venture-funded start-up in Acton, Massachusetts.
Prof. Vastola's research interests include network management, routing, wireless networks, and multimedia networking. He was selected as a University Fellow in Mathematics by the University of Illinois and received an IBM Faculty Development Award. He is a member of ACM and a Senior Member of IEEE. Prof. Vastola has been a member of numerous technical program committees and was the Technical Program Chair (in 1993) of IEEE INFOCOM, the joint annual conference of the IEEE Computer and Communication Societies. He was also the first tutorial chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, and was the IEEE Information Theory Society Treasurer and a member of the Finance Committee of the IEEE Technical Activities Board.
Prof. Vastola was a member of the editorial board of Computer Networks, The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking, 1993-1999, and an editor for the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 1994-2000.