[Colloquium] Distinguished Lecture at TTIC: Professor Shafi Goldwasser

[Latrice Richards]

Distinguished Lecture at TTIC: Professor Shafi Goldwasser, University of
California, Berkeley, MIT and Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Friday, November 8, 2019 at 10:30 am
TTIC
6045 S. Kenwood Avenue
Room #526
For more details please visit our website at  https://www.ttic.edu/dls/

*Title: “Pseudo Deterministic Algorithms and Proofs”*

*Abstract*: Probabilistic algorithms for both decision and search problems
can offer significant complexity improvements over deterministic
algorithms. One major difference, however, is that they may output
different solutions for different choices of randomness. This is less than
desirable in settings where uniqueness of output is important such as in
the generation of system-wide cryptographic parameters or in a distributed
setting where different sources of randomness are used.
Pseudo-deterministic algorithms are a class of randomized search
algorithms, which output a unique answer with high probability.
Intuitively, they are indistinguishable from deterministic algorithms by a
polynomial time observer of their input/output behavior. In this talk I
will describe what is known about pseudo-deterministic algorithms in the
sequential, sub-linear and parallel setting. I will also describe an
extension of pseudo-deterministic algorithms to interactive proofs for
search problems where the verifier is guaranteed with high probability to
deliver the same output on different executions, regardless of the prover
strategies.

*Bio*: Shafi Goldwasser is Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory
of Computing, and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
at the University of California Berkeley. Goldwasser is also Professor of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and Professor of
Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of
Science, Israel. Goldwasser holds a B.S. Applied Mathematics from Carnegie
Mellon University (1979), and M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the
University of California Berkeley (1984).

Goldwasser's pioneering contributions include the introduction of
probabilistic encryption, interactive zero knowledge protocols, elliptic
curve primality testings, hardness of approximation proofs for
combinatorial problems, and combinatorial property testing.

Goldwasser was the recipient of the ACM Turing Award in 2012, the Gödel
Prize in 1993 and in 2001, the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1996, the
RSA Award in Mathematics in 1998, the ACM Athena Award for Women in
Computer Science in 2008, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2010, the IEEE
Emanuel R. Piore Award in 2011, the Simons Foundation Investigator Award in
2012, and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2018.
Goldwasser is a member of the NAS, NAE, AAAS, the Russian Academy of
Science, the Israeli Academy of Science, and the London Royal Mathematical
Society. Goldwasser holds honorary degrees from Ben Gurion University, Bar
Ilan University, Haifa University, and the University of Oxford, and has
received the UC Berkeley Distinguished Alumnus Award and the Barnard
College Medal of Distinction.
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