The character arc of Shafi Goldwasser

A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record

Born on 14 November 1959 in New York City and raised in Tel Aviv. Between then and now sit a return to the United States, a bachelors in mathematics and science from Carnegie Mellon in 1979, a masters in 1981 and a doctorate at Berkeley in 1984, a cryptosystem devised with her supervisor, the idea of probabilistic encryption proposed with a fellow student, zero-knowledge proofs introduced in 1985, a professorship at MIT from 1983 and at the Weizmann Institute from 1993, two Godel Prizes, a Turing Award in 2012, and a company founded in 2016. The line below draws the story so far, in order.

Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.

Who is Shafi Goldwasser?

Prove you know it. Without saying what it is.

She was born in New York City and grew up in Tel Aviv, then came back to the United States and took her bachelors degree in mathematics and science from Carnegie Mellon in 1979. She went to Berkeley for a masters in 1981 and a doctorate in 1984, supervised by Manuel Blum, and worked there on cryptography and algorithmic number theory.

Two of the three things she is known for were done while she was still a student. With Blum she proposed a cryptosystem that carries both their names. With Silvio Micali, another Berkeley student at the time, she introduced the idea of probabilistic encryption, in which one message can be encrypted probabilistically into many different ciphertexts, which makes it far harder to attack by feeding it chosen plaintext.

The third came in 1985. With Micali and Charles Rackoff she introduced zero-knowledge proofs, which let somebody demonstrate, probabilistically and interactively, that an assertion is true without conveying any other information at all. Read that twice: you convince somebody you know the answer without telling them the answer. They had got there by studying interactive proofs more broadly, where a proof is built up by answering a series of questions, and the concept was published separately at around the same time by two other groups; all of them later shared a Godel Prize for it.

She joined MIT in 1983 and in 1997 became the first holder of the RSA Professorship there. From 1993 she was also a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, holding both posts at once, and she is part of the theory of computation group at the MIT computer science laboratory. From January 2018 to August 2024 she directed the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

In November 2016 she co-founded a company with colleagues to commercialise fully homomorphic encryption, a way of computing on data without ever decrypting it, and is its chief scientist. She advises several technology companies. She has twice won the Godel Prize, in 1993 and 2001, and in 2012 she and Silvio Micali were awarded the ACM Turing Award for having pioneered the field of provable security, which laid the mathematical foundations that made modern cryptography possible.

The moments

Shafi Goldwasser's timeline.

The 1950s

14 Nov 1959

New York, then Tel Aviv

Everyday. Born in one country and raised in another.

The 1970s

Jun 1979

Carnegie Mellon

Milestone, and it changed her direction. She came back for the mathematics.

The 1980s

Jun 1981

Berkeley, under Manuel Blum

Milestone, and it changed everything. One supervisor, and the subject that decided everything.

Jun 1982

A cryptosystem with her supervisor

Milestone, and it changed her direction. Her name on a cryptosystem, as a student.

Jun 1983

Probabilistic encryption

Milestone, and it changed everything. One message, many possible ciphertexts, and much harder to break.

Sep 1983

MIT

Milestone, and it changed her direction. She joined MIT before she had finished the doctorate.

1 Jun 1984

Publish the strange idea, or the safe one

Crossroads, decided.

The paths laid out: publish zero-knowledge, taken, or stay with the encryption work. Zero-knowledge proofs became a fundamental primitive of modern cryptography, and the Turing Award citation named provable security as the field she pioneered.

Jun 1985

Zero-knowledge proofs

Milestone, and it changed everything. You can prove you know it without saying what it is.

Jun 1988

Interactive proofs, twice over

Milestone, and it changed her direction. Two groups found it at once, and shared the prize.

The 1990s

Jun 1993

A chair in Israel too

Milestone, and it changed everything. Two professorships, in two countries, at once.

Sep 1993

The first Godel Prize

Milestone, and it changed everything. The prize for the paper that started it.

Jun 1997

The RSA Professorship

Milestone, and it changed her direction. The first person to hold the chair.

The 2000s

Jun 2001

A second Godel Prize

Milestone, and it changed her direction. Twice, which almost nobody manages.

The 2010s

Jun 2012

The Turing Award

Milestone, and it changed everything. Computing highest prize, shared with the student she worked with at Berkeley.

Nov 2016

A company for encrypted computing

Milestone, and it changed everything. Computing on data without ever unlocking it.

1 Jan 2018

Director at the Simons Institute

Milestone, and it changed her direction. Six years running the institute.

Zero-knowledge proofs now sit underneath a great deal of modern cryptography and a good deal of what people are building on top of it. What she set moving is one of the strangest true ideas in computing, which is that you can convince somebody of something while telling them nothing whatsoever.

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Shafi Goldwasser: frequently asked questions

What people ask about her line.

What is Shafi Goldwasser's character arc?

A student raised between New York and Tel Aviv who, before she had finished her doctorate, had co-devised a cryptosystem and probabilistic encryption, and then proposed that you can prove you know something without revealing it.

What are zero-knowledge proofs by Shafi Goldwasser?

A method she introduced in 1985 with Silvio Micali and Charles Rackoff, letting somebody demonstrate probabilistically and interactively that an assertion is valid without conveying any additional knowledge. It became a fundamental cryptographic primitive.

Did Shafi Goldwasser win the Turing Award?

Yes, in 2012, together with Silvio Micali, for having pioneered the field of provable security, which laid the mathematical foundations that made modern cryptography possible. She has also twice won the Godel Prize, in 1993 and 2001.

What is probabilistic encryption by Shafi Goldwasser?

A notion she introduced with Silvio Micali while both were students at Berkeley, in which one message can be encrypted probabilistically to many different ciphertexts, making it much more resistant to chosen-plaintext attacks.

Where does Shafi Goldwasser teach?

She is the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, which she joined in 1983 and where she became the first holder of that chair in 1997, and a professor of mathematical sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science from 1993.

What company did Shafi Goldwasser found?

Duality Technologies, co-founded in November 2016 with colleagues including Vinod Vaikuntanathan, to commercialise fully homomorphic encryption, which allows computation on data without ever decrypting it. She is its co-founder and chief scientist, and also advises several other technology startups.

Where does this timeline of Shafi Goldwasser's life come from?

From the public record. Character Arc drew every moment on this line from the sources listed at the foot of the page, and the kind and weight of each moment are our editorial reading. Shafi Goldwasser isn't a Member of Character Arc and has no connection with it, and no feeling is attributed to her.

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Sources

Shafi Goldwasser, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
The knowledge complexity of interactive proof systems, the Godel Prize winning paper.
The 2012 ACM Turing Award citation.
Her professorships at MIT and at the Weizmann Institute of Science.