Description:

Friday / CS Distinguished Lecture
May 10th / 12:00 PM
Hybrid / Mudd 3514

Speaker
Shafi Goldwasser; Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, University of California Berkeley

Talk Title
Trust, Backdoor Vulnerabilities and Possible  Mitigations

Abstract
Cryptographic tools and models enable to trust the use of technology platforms controlled by worst case computationally bounded adversaries. In this talk I will use cryptographic modeling and tools to view trust dilemmas in various phases of the machine learning pipelines. We will touch on privacy in the training stage, verification of properties of
machine learning models, and the possibility of achieving robustness in presence of backdoors.

Biography

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 the RSA Professor (post tenure) of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and Professor Emeritus 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  contributions include the introduction of probabilistic encryption, interactive zero knowledge protocols, elliptic curve primality testings, hardness of approximation proofs for combinatorial problems, combinatorial property testing, and pseudo deterministic algorithms.

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, the London Royal Mathematical Society and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. Goldwasser holds honorary degrees from Ben Gurion University, Bar Ilan University, Carnegie Mellon University, Haifa University, University of Oxford, and the University of Waterloo, and has received the UC Berkeley Distinguished Alumnus Award and the Barnard College Medal of Distinction.

Research Area/Interests
Cryptography, Complexity, Probabilistic Algorithms

Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/99797040711?pwd=OWtvMGE1TU0rNmdkUEtqb2IrNmJEUT09