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Michael O. Rabin

Faculty
  • Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Professor of Computer Science
    Michael O. Rabin

    Contact Information

    Office: Maxwell Dworkin Building 349
    Email: rabin [ AT ] seas [ DOT ] harvard [ DOT ] edu
    Office Phone: (617) 496-6294
    Office Fax: (617) 495-9837
    Assistant: Carol Harlow
    Office: Maxwell Dworkin 343
    Email: harlow [ AT ] seas [ DOT ] harvard [ DOT ] edu
    Office Phone: 617/496-1440
    Lab Phone: (617) 495-5817

    Recruitment Status

    Not accepting graduate students

    Education

    1. M.Sc., 1953, Mathematics, Hebrew University,
    2. Ph.D., 1957, Mathematics, Pinceton University

    Research Interests

      • Applied Mathematics & Computational Science
      • Theory of Computation
      • Computer Science
      • Privacy and Security
      • Theory of Computation

    Primary Teaching Area

    Computer Science

    Profile

    Professor Rabin received his M.Sc. from the Hebrew University and his Ph.D. from Princeton University under A. Church, where he had his first academic appointment. Later he was visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study, interacting with K. Godel.

    He was Albert Einstein Professor of Mathematics at the Hebrew University, serving as its Rector (Academic Head) from 1972 to 1975. At various times he held Visiting Professorships at Yale University, the Weizmann Institute, the Israel Technion, UC Berkeley, MIT, University of Paris, the Courant Institute of Mathematics, Caltech, ETH Zurich, Columbia University, and Kings College London. He was Saville Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, and Steward Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. From 1982 to 1994 he served on the IBM Science Advisory Committee. In Spring 2009 he was Visiting Researcher at Google.

    Rabin was elected as member or foreign honorary member to academies including: the US National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Foreign Member Royal Society. He holds honorary degrees from New York University, Haifa University, the University of Bordeaux I, Israel's Open University, Ben Gurion University, and the University of Wroclaw .

    Rabin's research interests include complexity of computations, efficient algorithms, randomized algorithms, DNA to DNA Computing, parallel and distributed computation computer security, cryptography and financial cryptography.

    In recent years he has created, with Y. Aumann and Y.Z. Ding, Hyper-Encryption, the first ever encryption scheme provably providing everlasting secrecy against a computationally unbounded adversary; invented, with S.Micali and J. Kilian, Zero Knowledge Sets, a new primitive for privacy and security protocols; invented and implemented, with W. Yang and H. Rao, a micro chip for physical generation of a strong stream of truly random bits. Hyper-Encryption has been implemented at Harvard and MT via a novel limited access model. Most recently he has innovated practical ZKPs applicable to auctions and other financial processes.

    Positions & Employment

    Harvard School/Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences

    • 1983: Thomas J. Watson Sr. Professor of Computer Science

    Harvard Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences

    • 1981-83: Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science

    Hebrew University

    • 1980-99: Albert Einstein Chair

    Hebrew University

    • 1976-80: Pro-Rector

    Hebrew University

    • 1972-75: Rector (Academic Head)

    Hebrew University

    • 1970-71: Chairman, Computer Science Department

    Hebrew University

    • 1964-66: Chairman, Institute of Mathematics

    Hebrew University of Jerusalem

    • 1958: Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and Professor (1965)

    Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

    • 1958: Member

    Princeton University

    • 1956-58: H. B. Fine Instructor

    Other Experience

    • Editorial Board Member, Journal of Computer and Systems Sciences
    • Editorial Board Member, Journal of Combinatorial Theory
    • Editorial Board Member, Journal of Algorithms
    • Visiting Researcher, Google, 2009 February-June
    • Member Europeon Academy of Science, 2007
    • Foreign Member Royal Society, 2007
    • Associ´e ´ Etranger, French Academy of Sciences, 1995-Present

    • President, Div. for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, IUHPS, 1990-2003

    • Foreign Member American Philosophical Society, 1988-Present
    • Foreign Associate US National Academy of Science, 1984-Present
    • Israel Academy of Sciences and Humantities, 1982-Present
    • Consultant, IBM Science Advisory Committee, 1980-1992
    • American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1975-Present
    • Consultant, IBM Research, 1970-1971
    • Consultant, IBM Research, 1966-1967
    • Consultant, IBM Research, Summers 1957, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1969, 1976, 1992
    • Consultant, Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1960

    Honors

    • IACR Fellow, 2009
    • Honorary Doctorate, Wroclaw University, 2007
    • The EMET Prize in Exact Sciences/Computer Science, 2004
    • ACM Kanellakis Theory and Pratice Award, 2004
    • ASL Godel Award Lecture, 2004
    • IEEE Charles Babbage Award in Computer Science, 2000
    • Honorary Doctorate, Ben-Gurion University, 2000
    • Honorary Doctorate, Israel Open University Honorary Fellow, 1999
    • Honorary Doctorate, New York University, 1998
    • Honorary Doctorate, Haifa University, 1996
    • Honorary Doctorate, University of Bordeaux I, 1996
    • The Israel Prize in Exact Sciences/Computer Science, 1995
    • Harvey Prize in Science and Technology, 1980
    • ACM Turing Award in Computer Science, 1976
    • Rothschild Prize in Mathematics, 1974

    • Best Teacher Award, Courant Institute of Mathematics, 1970.

    • The C. Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences, 1960

    Selected Publications

    1. Cryptographic Combinatorial Clock-Proxy Auctions, (with David C. Parkes and Christopher Thorpe) Proceedings of Financial Cryptography and Data Security, 2009, pp. 305-324.
    2. Practical secrecy-preserving, verifiably correct and trustworthy auctions (with D. C. Parkes, S. M. Shieber, C. A. Thorpe), Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 7:3 (November 2008), pp. 294-312.
    3. Highly Efficient Secrecy-Preserving Proofs of Correctness of Computations and Applications,(with R. A. Servidio and C. Thorpe), LICS 2007,Proceedings of 22nd Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, 14 pages, 2007.
    4. Preventing Piracy While Preserving Privacy, with Dennis E. Shasha in Dr. Dobb’s Journal Computer Security, CMP Media LLC, 2005
    5. Provably Unbreakable Hyper-Encryption In the Limited Access Model, Proceedings IEEE Symp. on Information Theory Workshop on Theory and Practice in Information-Theoretic Security,pp. 34-37 Awaji Island, Japan, 2005.
    6. Identity-Based Zero Knowledge (with J. Katz and R. Ostrovsky), in Security in Communication Networks, 4th Intl. Conf., 2004, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3352 Springer 2005, pp 180-192.
    7. Zero Knowledge Sets (with S. Micali and J. Kilian), Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), pp. 80-86, October 2003.
    8. Online Scheduling of Parallel Programs on Heterogeneous Systems with Applications to Cilk. (with M. A. Bender) . Theory of Computing Systems Special Issue on SPAA ’00, 35: 289-304, 2002.
    9. Everlasting Security in the Bounded Storage Model (with Y. Aumann and Y. Z. Ding) IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Volume 48, Issue 6, pages 1668-1680, June 2002.
    10. Hyper-Encryption and Everlasting Security (with Y. Z. Ding) Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS), pages 1-26, Antibes - Juan les Pins, France, March 14-16, 2002

    Faculty CV

    rabin_full_cv(2).pdf — PDF document, 66Kb