Edna Grossman (born Edna Kalka) is an American mathematician. She was born in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, grew up in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and graduated with a B.S. in mathematics from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

. She earned her M.S. in mathematics from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

, where she also received her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in mathematics in 1972; her thesis, supervised by

Wilhelm Magnus Hans Heinrich Wilhelm Magnus known as Wilhelm Magnus (February 5, 1907 in Berlin, Germany – October 15, 1990 in New Rochelle, New York) was a German-American mathematician. He made important contributions in combinatorial group theory, Lie algebr ...

, concerned the

symmetries Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definiti ...

free group In mathematics, the free group ''F'S'' over a given set ''S'' consists of all words that can be built from members of ''S'', considering two words to be different unless their equality follows from the group axioms (e.g. ''st'' = ''suu''−1' ...

s. Grossman worked for IBM, where she was part of the team that designed and analyzed the

Data Encryption Standard The Data Encryption Standard (DES ) is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encryption of digital data. Although its short key length of 56 bits makes it too insecure for modern applications, it has been highly influential in the advancement of cry ...

. She is known for her development, along with

Bryant Tuckerman Louis Bryant Tuckerman, III (November 28, 1915 – May 19, 2002) was an American mathematician, born in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was a member of the team that developed the Data Encryption Standard (DES). He studied topology at Princeton, where he i ...

, of the first

slide attack The slide attack is a form of cryptanalysis designed to deal with the prevailing idea that even weak ciphers can become very strong by increasing the number of rounds, which can ward off a differential attack. The slide attack works in such a way ...

cryptanalysis Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic sec ...

References

20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American cryptographers American women mathematicians Group theorists Brooklyn College alumni Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women {{US-mathematician-stub