Neal I. Koblitz (born December 24, 1948) is a Professor of Mathematics at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle ...

. He is also an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

with the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research at the University of Waterloo. He is the creator of

hyperelliptic curve cryptography Hyperelliptic curve cryptography is similar to elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) insofar as the Jacobian of a hyperelliptic curve is an abelian group in which to do arithmetic, just as we use the group of points on an elliptic curve in ECC. Definit ...

and the independent co-creator of

elliptic curve cryptography Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys compared to non-EC cryptography (based on plain Galois fields) to provide e ...

Biography

Koblitz received his

undergraduate degree An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher e ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in 1969. While at Harvard, he was a

Putnam Fellow The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (rega ...

in 1968. He received his Ph.D. from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1974 under the direction of

Nick Katz Nicholas Michael Katz (born December 7, 1943) is an American mathematician, working in arithmetic geometry, particularly on ''p''-adic methods, monodromy and moduli problems, and number theory. He is currently a professor of Mathematics a ...

. From 1975 to 1979 he was an instructor at

. In 1979 he began working at the University of Washington. Koblitz's 1981 article "Mathematics as Propaganda" criticized the misuse of mathematics in the social sciences and helped motivate Serge Lang's successful challenge to the nomination of political scientist

Samuel P. Huntington Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser, and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affai ...

to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Na ...

. In ''

The Mathematical Intelligencer ''The Mathematical Intelligencer'' is a mathematical journal published by Springer Verlag that aims at a conversational and scholarly tone, rather than the technical and specialist tone more common among academic journals. Volumes are released quar ...

'', Koblitz, Steven Weintraub, and

Saunders Mac Lane Saunders Mac Lane (4 August 1909 – 14 April 2005) was an American mathematician who co-founded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg. Early life and education Mac Lane was born in Norwich, Connecticut, near where his family lived in Taftvill ...

later criticized the arguments of

Herbert A. Simon Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His prima ...

, who had attempted to defend Huntington's work. He co-invented

Elliptic-curve cryptography Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys compared to non-EC cryptography (based on plain Galois fields) to provide e ...

in 1985, with Victor S. Miller and for this was awarded the Levchin Prize in 2021. With his wife

Ann Hibner Koblitz Ann Hibner Koblitz (born 1952) is a Professor Emerita of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University known for her studies of the history of women in science. She is the Director of the Kovalevskaia Fund, which supports women in science ...

, he in 1985 founded the Kovalevskaia Prize, to honour women scientists in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agree ...

. It was financed from the royalties of Ann Hibner Koblitz's 1983 biography of Sofia Kovalevskaia. Although the awardees have ranged over many fields of science, one of the 2011 winners was a Vietnamese mathematician, Lê Thị Thanh Nhàn. Koblitz is an atheist.Koblitz, Neal. Random Curves: Journeys of a Mathematician. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2008. Print. "For me, an atheist and an aspiring mathematician..."

Selected publications

* * * * * *

References

External links

Neal Koblitz's home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koblitz, Neal 1948 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American atheists Modern cryptographers Public-key cryptographers Putnam Fellows Number theorists Harvard University alumni Princeton University alumni University of Washington faculty

Biography

See also

Selected publications

References

External links