Brent R. Waters is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

, specializing in

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

and

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

. He is currently a professor of Computer Science at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Career

Waters attended the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, where he graduated in 2000 with a BS in computer science. He earned a PhD in computer science from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 2004. Waters completed his post-doctoral work at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

from 2004 to 2005, hosted by

Dan Boneh Dan Boneh (; he, דן בונה) is an Israeli-American professor in applied cryptography and computer security at Stanford University. In 2016, Boneh was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the theory an ...

, and then worked at

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

as a computer scientist until 2008. In 2008, he joined the University of Texas at Austin, where he currently holds the title of Professor in the Department of Computer Science. In July 2019, he joined NTT Research to work in their Cryptography and Information Security (CIS) Laboratory. In 2005, Waters first proposed the concepts of

attribute-based encryption Attribute-based encryption is a type of public-key encryption in which the secret key of a user and the ciphertext are dependent upon attributes (e.g. the country in which they live, or the kind of subscription they have). In such a system, the decr ...

and

functional encryption Functional encryption (FE) is a generalization of public-key encryption in which possessing a secret key allows one to learn a function of what the ciphertext is encrypting. Formal definition More precisely, a functional encryption scheme for a g ...

with

Amit Sahai Amit Sahai (born 1974) is an American computer scientist. He is a professor of computer science at UCLA and the director of the Center for Encrypted Functionalities. Biography Amit Sahai was born in 1974 in Thousand Oaks, California, to parents wh ...

Awards

Waters was awarded the

Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

in 2010. In 2011, he was awarded the

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...

and a Packard Fellowship. In 2015, he was awarded the

Grace Murray Hopper Award The Grace Murray Hopper Award (named for computer pioneer RADM Grace Hopper) has been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) since 1971. The award goes to a computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or serv ...

for the introduction and development of the concepts of attribute-based encryption and functional encryption. In 2019, he was named a

Simons Investigator The Simons Foundation is a private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the US with assets of over $5 billion in 2022, the foundation's mission ...

in theoretical computer science. He was elected an

ACM Fellow ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing ...

in 2021.

Selected publications

* * * * *

References

External links

Brent Waters
at University of Texas * {{DEFAULTSORT:Waters, Brent Living people American cryptographers Computer security specialists Modern cryptographers American computer scientists University of California, Los Angeles alumni Princeton University alumni University of Texas at Austin faculty Grace Murray Hopper Award laureates Simons Investigator Year of birth missing (living people)