Prof. Ronald L Rivest

In 1977, with colleagues Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, Rivest devised what quickly became known as the RSA public-key cryptosystem, which secures communications between computers using products of large prime numbers. The system has proven durable and remained unbroken. That is just one part of a distinguished career that has seen Rivest conduct research in cryptography, other aspects of computer and network security, algorithms, machine learning, and even voting technology. He has also taught well-received classes in all those fields, and co-authored a best-selling textbook, “Introduction to Algorithms,” that has been used by hundreds of thousands of students.