Shafi Goldwasser (MCS 1979)

Director, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, Professor of Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley

Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology

Shafi Goldwasser, who earned her bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1979, is among the world’s elite computer scientists. In 2012, she received the Association for Computing Machinery’s Turing Award, the highest honor in computer science given to an individual for their contributions “of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field.” 

Goldwasser’s pioneering contributions include the introduction of probabilistic encryption, interactive zero knowledge protocols, elliptic curve primality testings, hardness of approximation proofs for combinatorial problems and combinatorial property testing.

In addition to the Turing Award, Goldwasser is a two-time winner of the Gödel Prize (1993, 2001) for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science. She received the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, the RSA Award in Mathematics, the ACM Athena Award for Women in Computer Science, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award, the Simons Foundation Investigator Award, and most recently the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2018.

Goldwasser is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Russian Academy of Science, the Israeli Academy of Science and the London Royal Mathematical Society. 

She earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984. She has been awarded several honorary degrees, the Berkeley Distinguished Alumnus Award and the Barnard College Medal of Distinction.