Yael Tauman Kalai

Yael Tauman Kalai
Born
Tel Aviv, Israel
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Known forRing Signatures, the insecurity of the Fiat–Shamir heuristic, delegating computation
Scientific career
FieldsCryptography, Computer Science
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Microsoft Research
Doctoral advisorShafi Goldwasser
Doctoral studentsElette Boyle

Yael Tauman Kalai is a cryptographer and theoretical computer scientist and is the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor at MIT in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.[1] Prior to that, she worked as a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England[2][3].

Education and career

Kalai graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1997. She worked with Adi Shamir at the Weizmann Institute of Science, earning a master's degree there in 2001, and then moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she completed her PhD in 2006 with Shafi Goldwasser as her doctoral advisor. She did postdoctoral study at Microsoft Research and the Weizmann Institute before becoming a faculty member at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She took a permanent position at Microsoft Research in 2008.[2][3] She serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM).[4]

Contributions

Kalai is known for co-inventing ring signatures, which has become a key component of numerous systems such as Cryptonote and Monero (cryptocurrency). Subsequently, together with her advisor Shafi Goldwasser, she demonstrated an insecurity in the widely used Fiat–Shamir heuristic. Her work on delegating computation has applications to cloud computing.[5]

Recognition

Kalai was an invited speaker on mathematical aspects of computer science at the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians.[6]

Her master's thesis introducing ring signatures won an outstanding master's thesis award[3] and MIT PhD dissertation was awarded the George M. Sprowls Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis in Computer Science.[3][7]

She was co-chair of the Theory of Cryptography Conference in 2017.[8]

She was awarded the 2022 ACM Prize in Computing "for breakthroughs in verifiable delegation of computation and fundamental contributions to cryptography".[9]

Personal

Kalai is the daughter of game theorist Yair Tauman.[10] Her husband, Adam Tauman Kalai, also works at Microsoft Research.[11]

References

  1. ^ Yael Kalai, MIT CSAIL, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 23, 2024
  2. ^ a b Yael Tauman Kalai, Principal Researcher, Microsoft, retrieved 2018-09-11
  3. ^ a b c d Yael Kalai, Researcher, Microsoft Research New England, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, 22 October 2014
  4. ^ "ICERM - Trustee and Advisory Boards - Trustee & Advisory Boards". icerm.brown.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-11.
  5. ^ Hardesty, Larry (June 10, 2013), "Securing the cloud: New algorithm solves major problem with homomorphic encryption", MIT News, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, retrieved 2018-09-11 – via Phys.org
  6. ^ "Invited section lectures", ICM 2018, retrieved 2018-08-08
  7. ^ "Awards and Honors 2007", EECS Newsletter, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Fall 2007, retrieved Sep 10, 2018
  8. ^ Theory of Cryptography: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference, TCC 2017, Baltimore, MD, USA, November 12-15, 2017, Springer, retrieved 2018-09-11
  9. ^ ACM Prize in Computing Recognizes Yael Tauman Kalai for Fundamental Contributions to Cryptography, Association for Computing Machinery, retrieved April 13, 2023
  10. ^ Parshall, Allison (July 27, 2023), "The Cryptographer Who Ensures We Can Trust Our Computers", Quanta Magazine
  11. ^ Knies, Rob (May 14, 2009), New England Researcher Finds Her Bliss, Microsoft