By the Association for Computing Machinery.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Indian-origin researcher Sanjam Garg has been awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2013 by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), an organization of computing professionals that works to advance computing as a science and profession.
Garg, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, will receive the award at the annual ACM Awards Banquet on June 21, which will be held in San Francisco, California. The event is sponsored by Google, and Garg will receive a $20,000 cash prize to go along with his commendation as a leader in computing hardware development.
The Doctoral Dissertation Award is for Garg’s “Candidate Multilinear Maps,” which he wrote for his dissertation.
According to a press release issued by ACM, the paper “described new mathematical tools that serve as key ingredients for transforming a program into a “jigsaw puzzle” of encrypted pieces. Corresponding to each input is a unique set of puzzle pieces that, when assembled reveal the output of the program. Security of the obfuscated program hinges on the fact that illegitimate combinations of the puzzle pieces do not reveal anything.”
ACM describes Garg’s work as a “breakthrough” for its ability to take seemingly impenetrable computer coding and make is readable, accessibly, and usable to a wide range of people.
Garg, a Josef Raviv Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow at IBM Research T.J. Watson Center, completed his dissertation at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The institution nominated him for the prize several months ago, and his victory was announced on Thursday.
Also announced were the honorable mention awards, which will go to Grey Ballard of Sandia National Laboratories and Shayan Oveis Gharan of the University of California, Berkeley. The two will split a $10,000 cash prize, also provided via sponsorship from Google. Gharan is a graduate of the Sharif University in Tehran, Iran.