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SCS NEWS IN BRIEF
TWO WITH CMU TIES WIN TURING AWARD
Two researchers with ties to both
Carnegie Mellon University and SCS
professor Manuel Blum have received
the A.M. Turing Award from the
Association for Computing Machinery.
Shafi Goldwasser (CS’79) and Silvio
Micali, both affiliated with MIT’s
Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, are co-recipients
of the 2012 Turing Award for
their work to take data encryption
from theory to practice.
They will receive the award—sometimes
called the “Nobel Prize of
computing”—at the ACM’s annual
banquet June 15 in San Francisco.
The Turing Award carries a $250,000
prize, with financial support from
Intel and Google.
Goldwasser is a 1979 graduate of
Carnegie Mellon with a B.S. in mathematics
who earned her M.S. and
Ph.D. in computer science from the
University of California at Berkeley.
With the win, Goldwasser becomes the
12th CMU affiliate—including faculty
and alumni—to be honored with a
Turing Award. Named for artificial
intelligence pioneer Alan Turing, the
very first Turing Award was presented
in 1966 to Alan J. Perlis, founding
head of the Computer Science Department
at what was then the Carnegie
Institute of Technology.
Micali is a graduate of the University
of Rome who also earned a Ph.D.
at Berkeley.
Goldwasser and Micali were advised
at Berkeley by Blum, himself a Turing
Award winner in 1995. Blum, formerly
a professor of computer science at
goldwasser and micali
Berkeley, came to CMU in 1999 and
currently serves as the university’s
Bruce Nelson Professor of Computer
Science.
In honoring Micali and Goldwasser,
the Turing Award committee said the
pair “laid the foundations of modern
theoretical cryptography, taking it
from a field of heuristics and hopes to
a mathematical science with careful
definitions and security models.”
The results they have achieved,
working together and with others, “established
the now-standard definitions
of security” for encryption and digital
signatures, the award committee said,
adding that Goldwasser and Micali
established the “tone and character
of modern cryptographic research.”
Their work in collaboration with other
researchers has “provided stunning
innovations,” the committee said.
Goldwasser is a two-time winner of
the Gödel Prize presented by the
European Association for Theoretical
Computer Science and the ACM’s
Special Interest Group on Algorithms
and Computation Theory. Her 1993
Gödel was shared with a team that
included Micali.
Micali has been a regular visitor to
the CMU campus. In February 2000,
Micali presented a paper on “certified
email” as part of the SCS Distinguished
Lecture Series, and in 2004
and 2011, Micali spoke at theory
seminars held by CMU’s Center for
Algorithm Adaptation, Dissemination
and Integration. He currently serves
as Ford Professor of Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science at MIT.
Goldwasser is the RSA Professor of
Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science at MIT and also a professor of
computer science and applied mathematics
at the Weizmann Institute of
Science in Israel.
SCS, TEPPER CENTERS JOIN FORCES
TO HELP ENTREPRENEURS
Two change agents on the CMU campus
have joined forces to help students
and faculty bring their ideas to market.
Project Olympus and the Donald H.
Jones Center for Entrepreneurship are
partnering to form a new Carnegie
Mellon Center for Innovation and
Entrepreneurship.
Olympus was founded in January
2007 by Lenore Blum, professor of
computer science, and operates as
part of SCS. The Don Jones Center
was created by CMU’s Tepper School
of Business.
“We want Carnegie Mellon to be the
destination of choice for students and
faculty who are interested in entrepreneurship,”
says Blum, who will
co-direct CIE along with Tepper’s
Dave Mawhinney. “The knowledge
and skills necessary to start a
business don’t come naturally,
regardless of how gifted a person
might be in their chosen discipline.
The Center for Innovation
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