doctoral_advisor nationality fields workplaces birth_date known_for doctoral_students article_title name alma_mater
nick katz united states mathematics university of washington university of waterloo 24 december 1948 creator of elliptic and hyperelliptic curve cryptography dustin moody gary ray daqing wan neal koblitz
 neal koblitz princeton university harvard university
neal koblitz

neal i. koblitz -lrb- born december 24 , 1948 -rrb- is a professor of mathematics at the university of washington in the department of mathematics .
he is also an adjunct professor with the centre for applied cryptographic research at the university of waterloo .
he is the creator of hyperelliptic curve cryptography and the independent co-creator of elliptic curve cryptography .
koblitz received his undergraduate degree from harvard university in 1969 .
while at harvard , he was a putnam fellow in 1968 .
he received his ph.d. from princeton university in 1974 under the direction of nick katz .
from 1975 to 1979 he was an instructor at harvard university .
in 1979 he began working at the university of washington .
koblitz 's 1981 article `` mathematics as propaganda '' criticized the misuse of mathematics in the social sciences and helped motivate serge lang 's successful challenge to the nomination of political scientist samuel p. huntington to the national academy of sciences .
in `` the mathematical intelligencer '' , koblitz , steven weintraub , and saunders mac lane later criticized the arguments of herbert a. simon , who had attempted to defend huntington 's work .
with his wife ann hibner koblitz , he in 1985 founded the kovalevskaia prize , to honour women scientists in developing countries .
it was financed from the royalties of ann hibner koblitz 's 1983 biography of sofia kovalevskaia .
although the awardees have ranged over many fields of science , one of the 2011 winners was a vietnamese mathematician , lê thị thanh nhàn .
