Dr. Whitfield Diffie, Advisor

Dr. Whitfield Diffie is a globally renowned pioneer in computer security, best known for his 1975 joint invention of Public-Key Cryptology. Public Key now underlies all secure electronic commerce and stimulated development of an entirely new class of encryption process. 

Another historic Diffie insight was the “digital signature.” With this advance, digitally transmitted documents could easily – and for the first time – be irrefutably confirmed and documented, with an immense impact on commerce, as well as command and control systems. 

Diffie is a Marconi fellow and the recipient of a number of awards including the National Computer Systems Security Award (given jointly by NIST and NSA), the Franklin Institute's Levy Prize and the ACM Turing Award.