Ronald L. Rivest: Biographical Information

Professor Rivest is an MIT Institute Professor. His home department is the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is a member of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), a member of the lab's Theory of Computation Group and is a leader of its Cryptography and Information Security Group.

Professor Rivest has current research interests in cryptography, computer and network security, voting systems, algorithms, and exposure notification.. In the past he has also worked extensively in the area of machine learning.

Professor Rivest is a co-author (with Professors Cormen, Leiserson, and Stein) of the well-known text Introduction to Algorithms (now coming out in its Fourth Edition), published by MIT Press. Over 1,000,000 copies of this text have been sold. It has been translated into 14 languages.

Professor Rivest is an inventor of the RSA public-key cryptosystem. He has extensive experience in cryptographic design and cryptanalysis, and has published numerous papers in these areas. He has served as a Director of the International Association for Cryptologic Research, the organizing body for the Eurocrypt and Crypto conferences, and as a Director of the Financial Cryptography Association. He is a founder of RSA Data Security. (RSA was bought by Security Dynamics; the combined company was renamed to RSA Security, and later purchased by EMC), and is also a co-founder of Verisign and of Peppercoin.

Professor Rivest is a member of the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project. He served 2004--2009 on the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), advisory to the Election Assistance Commission, developing recommendations for voting system certification standards; he was chair of the TGDC's Computer Security and Transparency Subcommittee. He also serves on the Board of the Verified Voting Foundation. He is a member of a Scantegrity team developing and testing voting systems that are verifiable ``end-to-end.'' He has worked extensively on statistical post-election tabulation audits, of both the ``risk-limiting audit'' and ``Bayesian'' flavors.

Professor Rivest is a member of the Center for Science of Information.

Education

Professor Rivest grew up in Niskayuna, New York, where he attend public schools. He graduated from Niskayuna High School in 1965.

Professor Rivest received a B.A. in Mathematics from Yale University in 1969.

He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1974; his research supervisor was Professor Robert Floyd. He also worked closely with Professor Donald Knuth, David Klarner, and Vasek Chvatal.

He was a post-doc at INRIA in Rocquencourt, France for the academic year 1973-74.

Professional Societies

• AAAS (American Academy of Arts and Sciences)
  Became a member of the AAAS in 1993.
• ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)
  Named a Fellow of the ACM in 1993.
• IACR (International Association for Cryptologic Research)
  Named a Fellow of the IACR in 2004.
• IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
  
• NAE (National Academy of Engineering)
  Became a member in 1990.
• NAS (National Academy of Science)
  Became a member in 2004.

Awards

2018

- BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award

- National Inventors Hall of Fame

2017

- EVN Award for Election Integrity Research Excellence

- EPIC Champions of Freedom Award

2016

- EFF Pioneer Award (as co-author of ``Keys Under Doormats'' paper)

2015

- 2015 JD Falk Award from the Messaging Malware Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) (as co-author of ``Keys Under Doormats'' report)

- ETH Zurich ABZ Platinum Gold Medal for Computer Science and Computer Science Education

2014

- ISSA (Information Systems Security Association) Hall of Fame Award

- Doctorate of Mathematics (honoris causa), University of Waterloo

- 2013-14 HKN (Beta Theta Chapter of Eta Kappa Nu) Teaching Award

2013

- Listed in 35 Best Computer Security Professors of 2013

2012

- National Cyber Security Hall of Fame Award

2011

- RSA 2011 Conference Lifetime Achievement Award (with A. Shamir and L. Adleman)

2010

- Killian Faculty Achievement Award from MIT

2009

- NEC C&C Prize (with A. Shamir and L. Adleman)

2008

- An honorary doctorate (the doctorat honoris causa) from the Louvain School of Engineering at the Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL).

- Burgess and Elizabeth Jamieson Award from MIT EECS Dept.

2007

- Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference "Distinguished Innovator" award

2005

- MITX Lifetime Achievement Award

- Marconi Prize

2002

- the 2002 ACM Turing Award (with A. Shamir and L. Adleman)

- Laurea Honoris Causa, University of Rome La Sapienza

2000

- IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award (with A. Shamir and L. Adleman)

- Secure Computing Lifetime Achievement Award (with A. Shamir and L. Adleman)

1997

- ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award

1996

- National Computer Systems Security Award

1991

- AAAS Fellow (American Association for the Advancement of Science)

Advisory Boards

• EPIC Advisory Board (Electronic Privacy Information Center)
• Verified Voting Foundation Board