Ralph Merkle

Ralph Merkle
Merkle at the Singularity Summit 2007
Born	(1952-02-02) February 2, 1952 Berkeley, California
Citizenship	American
Nationality	American
Fields	Public key cryptography, molecular nanotechnology, cryonics
Institutions	Singularity University Alcor Life Extension Foundation Institute for Molecular Manufacturing Elxsi Georgia Institute of Technology
Alma mater	UC Berkeley (B.A., 1974) Stanford University (M.S., 1977; Ph.D., 1979)
Thesis	Secrecy, authentication and public key systems
Doctoral advisor	Martin Hellman
Known for	Co-inventor of public key cryptography Merkle tree Merkle's puzzles Merkle–Hellman knapsack cryptosystem Merkle–Damgård construction
Notable awards	IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (2010) Computer History Museum Fellow (2011)
Spouse	Carol Shaw
Website www.merkle.com

Ralph C. Merkle (born February 2, 1952) is a computer scientist. He is one of the inventors of public key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology and cryonics.

Early life and education

Merkle graduated from Livermore High School in 1970 and proceeded to study computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, obtaining his B.A. in 1974, and his M.S. in 1977. In 1979 he received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford University, with a thesis entitled Secrecy, authentication and public key systems; his advisor was Martin Hellman.

Contributions

Merkle devised a scheme for communication over an insecure channel: Merkle's puzzles as part of a class project while an undergraduate. The scheme is now recognized to be an early example of public key cryptography. He co-invented the Merkle–Hellman knapsack cryptosystem, invented cryptographic hashing (now called the Merkle–Damgård construction based on a pair of articles published 10 years later that established the security of the scheme), and invented Merkle trees. While at Xerox PARC, Merkle designed the Khufu and Khafre block ciphers, and the Snefru hash function.

Career

Merkle was the manager of compiler development at Elxsi from 1980. In 1988, he became a research scientist at Xerox PARC. In 1999 he became a nanotechnology theorist for Zyvex. In 2003 he became a Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech, where he led the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. In 2006 he returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he has been a senior research fellow at IMM, a faculty member at Singularity University, and a board member of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. He was awarded the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 2010.

Personal life

Ralph Merkle is the grandnephew of baseball star Fred Merkle, the son of Theodore Charles Merkle, director of Project Pluto and the brother of Judith Merkle Riley, a historical writer. Merkle is married to Carol Shaw, the video game designer best known for her game, River Raid.

Merkle is on the Board of Directors of the cryonics organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Merkle appears in the science fiction novel The Diamond Age, involving nanotechnology.

Awards

• 1996 Paris Kanellakis Award
• 1996 ACM Award for the Invention of Public Key Cryptography.
• 1998 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology for computational modeling of molecular tools for atomically-precise chemical reactions
• 1999 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award
• 2000 RSA award for the invention of public key cryptography.
• 2008 International Association for Cryptographic Research (IACR) fellow for the invention of public key cryptography.
• 2010 IEEE Hamming Medal for the invention of public key cryptography
• 2011 Computer History Museum Fellow "for his work, with Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, on public key cryptography."
• 2011 National Inventors Hall of Fame, for the invention of public key cryptography
• 2012 National Cyber Security Hall of Fame inductee

See also

• Ralph C. Merkle, Secrecy, authentication, and public key systems (Computer science), UMI Research Press, 1982, ISBN 0-8357-1384-9.
• Robert A. Freitas Jr., Ralph C. Merkle, Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, Landes Bioscience, 2004, ISBN 1-57059-690-5.
• Paul Kantor (Ed), Gheorghe Mureşan (Ed), Fred Roberts (Ed), Daniel Zeng (Ed), Frei-Yue Wang (Ed), Hsinchun Chen (Ed), Ralph Merkle (Ed), "Intelligence and Security Informatics" : IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2005, Atlanta, GA, USA, May 19–20, ... (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), Springer, 2005, ISBN 3-540-25999-6.
• Interview at Google Videos in the Death in the Deep Freeze documentary (August 2, 2006)
• Nova Southeastern University, Nanotechnology Expert Ralph Merkle to Speak on "Life and Death" (August 2008)

External links

• Ralph Merkle's personal website
• Oral history interview with Martin Hellman Oral history interview 2004, Palo Alto, California. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Hellman describes his invention of public key cryptography with collaborators Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle at Stanford University in the mid-1970s. He also relates his subsequent work in cryptography with Steve Pohlig (the Pohlig–Hellman system) and others.