Adia Lab welcomes award-winning Shafi Goldwasser to its advisory board

The 2012 Turing Award winner has made significant contributions to cryptography, number theory and complexity theory

The Adia office building. Jaime Puebla / The National

Adia Lab, the research institute launched by sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, said Shafi Goldwasser, director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing and the C Lester Hogan Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, has joined its advisory board.

Ms Goldwasser, who won the 2012 Turing Award for revolutionising the science of cryptography, has made significant contributions to cryptography, number theory and complexity theory as well as their applications to privacy and security, Adia Lab said in a statement on Thursday.

Adia Lab’s advisory board, which now comprises nine internationally renowned scientists, includes global thought-leaders from various data and computationally intensive disciplines, and oversees the development and implementation of the lab’s research agenda and programmes.

“In our digital world, privacy and security – including cyber security – are of critical societal importance,” said Horst Simon, director of Adia Lab.

“As one of the world’s leading authorities on cryptography, Professor Goldwasser’s expertise will be invaluable as we explore this fascinating topic and its potential impact across a broad range of applications.”

Ms Goldwasser is also the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a professor of computer science and applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

She is also a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a two-time winner of the Godel Award.

First launched in October, Adia Lab focuses on research in data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and high-performance and quantum computing across all major fields of study.

It began operations in December with the announcement of a $100,000 research award that focuses on investment strategies.

On a broader scale, it is expected to play a proactive role in the development of Abu Dhabi’s digital ecosystem.