Last updated: Jan. 2024.
Professor of Computer Science at the
Weizmann Institute of Science,
Israel.
Incumbent of the Meyer W. Weisgal
Professorial Chair.
Personal: Born in 1957 in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Married to Dana Ron. Israeli Citizen.
Education, Positions and Fellowships: B.A., M.Sc., and D.Sc. in Computer Science, Technion, Israel, 1980, 1982 and 1983, respectively. Post-doctoral Fellow at the theory group of the Laboratory for Computer Science of MIT, 1983-1986. Faculty member of the Computer Science Department at the Technion, 1983-1994. Since 1994, at the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Visiting Research Professor at the Miller Institute (of UC-Berkeley), 1996. Visiting Scientist at the Laboratory for Computer Science of MIT, 1995-98. Since 2003, a Corresponding Fellow of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (of Harvard University), 2003-04.
Research contributions to the foundations of computer science. In particular, to the foundations of cryptography, the study of the relation between randomness and computation (e.g., pseudorandomness, probabilistic proof systems, and property testing), complexity theory at large, and distributed computing. The most important contributions include showing how to construct zero-knowledge proof systems for NP, showing how to solve any multi-party protocol problem, presenting a generic hardcore predicate for any one-way function, and showing how to construct pseudorandom functions. [For more details see academic profile.]
Author of the books Modern Cryptography, Probabilistic Proofs and Pseudorandomness, the two-volume Foundations of Cryptography (Vol 1: Basic Tools and Vol 2: Basic Applications), Computational Complexity: A Conceptual Perspective, P, NP, and NP-completeness, and Introduction to Property Testing.
Other professional contribution include editing books in memory of Shimon Even, on property testing, and on the work of Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali; writing numerous technical surveys; and serving on the editorial board of Computational Complexity and ECCC (Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity).
Invited speaker at various conferences including the 1994 International Congress of Mathematicians, Crypto'97, and ICALP'00.
Own graduate studies advisor (1980-83): Shimon Even.
Former Graduate Students:
A partial list includes
Boaz Barak
(Ph.D. 04);
Ran Canetti
(M.Sc. 92, Ph.D. 95);
Guy Even (M.Sc. 91);
Tom Gur
(Ph.D. 17);
Iftach Haitner
(M.Sc. 03);
Amir Herzberg
(D.Sc. 91);
Hugo Krawczyk (D.Sc. 90);
Eyal
Kushilevitz (M.Sc. 89);
Yehuda Lindell
(Ph.D. 02);
Noam Livne
(Ph.D. 10);
Or Meir
(M.Sc. 07, Ph.D. 11);
Erez Petrank
(M.Sc. 92,
D.Sc. 95);
Alon Rosen
(Ph.D. 03);
Ron Rothblum
(M.Sc. 10, Ph.D. 15);
Roei Tell
(M.Sc. 15, Ph.D. 20).
See the full list (lightly-annotated).
Some other Research Colaborators in the past and present: Mihir Bellare (UCSD, USA), Benny Chor (Tel-Aviv U., Israel), Shafi Goldwasser (MIT, USA), Shai Halevi (IBM, USA), Johan Hastad (KTH, Sweden), Leonid Levin (BU, USA), Mike Luby (ICSI, USA), Silvio Micali (MIT, USA), Dana Ron (Tel-Aviv U., Israel), Guy Rothblum (Weizmann, Israel), Muli Safra (Tel-Aviv U., Israel), Madhu Sudan (MIT, USA), Salil Vadhan (Harvard, USA), Avi Wigderson (IAS, USA).