
Amit Sahai
PROFESSOR/VICE CHAIR OF ACADEMIC ADVANCEMENT
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Director of Center for Encrypted Functionalities (an NSF Frontier Center)
Symantec Endowed Chair in Computer Science
Engineering VI - Room 497A
Email: sahai@cs.ucla.eduPhone: (310) 267-4982
Fax: (310) 794-5057
Websites
Amit Sahai is a professor of computer science at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the director of the Center for Encrypted Functionalities, a National Science Foundation Frontiers Center. He is a Simons Investigator (2021), Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (2021), Fellow of the ACM (2018), Fellow of the IACR (2019), and the Symantec Endowed Chair in Computer Science.
Sahai’s research interests are in the foundations of computer security and cryptography, in particular, hiding secrets in software — secure program obfuscation, cryptographic proofs and secure multiparty computation. He is the co-inventor of attribute-based encryption, functional encryption and indistinguishability obfuscation.
Prior to joining UCLA in 2004, Sahai was on the faculty at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 2000, and has published more than 150 original technical research papers at venues such as the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), CRYPTO, and the Journal of the ACM. He serves as an editor of J. Cryptology (Springer-Nature) and is an advisor to the nonprofit Prison Mathematics Project.
He is a frequent speaker at various institutions, including MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and the 2004 Distinguished Cryptographer Lecture Series at NTT Labs in Japan.
Professor Sahai is the recipient of numerous honors, including an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow in 2002, an Okawa Research Grant Award in 2007, a Xerox Foundation Faculty Award in 2010, a Google Faculty Research Award in 2010, a 2012 Pazy Memorial Award, a 2016 ACM CCS Test of Time Award, a 2019 AWS Machine Learning Research Award, a 2020 IACR Test of Time Award (Eurocrypt) and a STOC 2021 Best Paper Award.
For his teaching, Sahai was given the 2016 Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award from UCLA Samueli. His research has been covered by many news outlets including Forbes, BBC, Quanta Magazine, Wired, and IEEE Spectrum.
Sahai’s research interests are in the foundations of computer security and cryptography, in particular, hiding secrets in software — secure program obfuscation, cryptographic proofs and secure multiparty computation. He is the co-inventor of attribute-based encryption, functional encryption and indistinguishability obfuscation.
Prior to joining UCLA in 2004, Sahai was on the faculty at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 2000, and has published more than 150 original technical research papers at venues such as the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), CRYPTO, and the Journal of the ACM. He serves as an editor of J. Cryptology (Springer-Nature) and is an advisor to the nonprofit Prison Mathematics Project.
He is a frequent speaker at various institutions, including MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and the 2004 Distinguished Cryptographer Lecture Series at NTT Labs in Japan.
Professor Sahai is the recipient of numerous honors, including an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow in 2002, an Okawa Research Grant Award in 2007, a Xerox Foundation Faculty Award in 2010, a Google Faculty Research Award in 2010, a 2012 Pazy Memorial Award, a 2016 ACM CCS Test of Time Award, a 2019 AWS Machine Learning Research Award, a 2020 IACR Test of Time Award (Eurocrypt) and a STOC 2021 Best Paper Award.
For his teaching, Sahai was given the 2016 Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award from UCLA Samueli. His research has been covered by many news outlets including Forbes, BBC, Quanta Magazine, Wired, and IEEE Spectrum.
RESEARCH AND INTERESTS
- Theoretical computer science
- Foundations of cryptography
- Computer security
- Cybersecurity and future internet
IN THE NEWS
- Computer Scientists Combine Two ‘Beautiful’ Proof Methods | Quanta Magazine, October 2024
- Pioneering Advanced Math from Behind Bars | Scientific American, June 2023
- Computer Scientist Explains One Concept in 5 Levels of Difficulty | WIRED, January 18, 2022
- Cryptographers Unveil Breakthrough In Achieving Indistinguishability Obfuscation | Forbes, December 15, 2020
- Start Spreading The (Good) News About Cybersecurity | Forbes, December 1, 2020
- Computer Scientists Achieve the ‘Crown Jewel’ of Cryptography | Wired, November 15, 2020
- STEPS FORWARD: Math geniuses strive to make a pivotal advance — by obfuscating software code | The Last Watchdog, November 16, 2020
- Computer Scientists Achieve ‘Crown Jewel’ of Cryptography | Quanta Magazine, November 10, 2020
- Can a computer program be unintelligible yet still work? | Enterprise Times, September 9, 2020
- Number keys promise safer data | BBC News, May 21 2008
EDUCATION
PhD (2000) MIT
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
- Distinguished Lecture at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2024
- American Mathematical Society Fellow, 2023
- FOCS Test of Time Award, 2023
- IACR Test of Time Award, 2023
- Program Committee Chair | FOCUS, 2023
- NAS Michael and Sheila Held Prize, 2022
- Simons Investigator Award, 2021
- IACR Test of Time Award, 2020
- AWS Machine Learning Research Award (MLRA), 2019
- Fellow of the IACR, 2019
- Fellow of the ACM, 2018
- ACM Test of Time Award, 2016
- Pazzy Memorial Research Award, 2012
- Google Rethinking Encryption Award, 2010
- Okawa Foundation Research Award, 2008
- Sloan Research Fellow, 2002