PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Adi Shamir

Adi Shamir is a cryptographer whose work also examines the security of neural networks. He studied mathematics at Tel Aviv University and computer science at the Weizmann Institute, then worked at Warwick and MIT. He co-invented RSA, published a secret-sharing scheme, and developed differential cryptanalysis of DES. His research later examined adversarial examples and cryptographic functions built as neural networks; he received the Turing Award in 2002 and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2024. As of October 2026, he holds the Paul and Marlene Borman Professorial Chair of Applied Mathematics at Weizmann Institute of Science.

Works
384
Citations
88,927
h-index
85
Rankings
#99 by citations
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1973–1980

    Study, MIT, and RSA

    He studies mathematics at Tel Aviv University in 1973 and computer science at the Weizmann Institute, earning an MSc in 1975 and a PhD in 1977. After a postdoctoral year at Warwick, he researches at MIT from 1977 to 1980. With Ron Rivest and Len Adleman, he co-invents RSA in 1977 and publishes a secret-sharing scheme in a 1979 paper.

  2. 1980–2002

    Weizmann professorship and Turing Award

    He becomes an associate professor in applied mathematics at Weizmann in 1980 and a professor there in 1984. At CRYPTO 1990, he and Eli Biham present a differential cryptanalysis attack that breaks DES with up to eight rounds in a few minutes on a PC. He receives the Turing Award in 2002.

  3. 2006

    Invited professor in Paris

    He becomes an invited professor at École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 2006.

  4. 2019

    Adversarial examples in neural networks

    With Itay Safran and Eyal Ronen, he studies examples where an imperceptible input change can fool well-trained neural networks.

  5. 2024

    A Wolf Prize in Mathematics

    He receives the 2024 Wolf Prize in Mathematics for his contributions to mathematical cryptography.

  6. 2026

    Deep neural cryptography

    In a paper published at EUROCRYPT 2026, he and coauthors define correctness and security for cryptographic primitives implemented as ReLU-based deep neural networks.

  7. As of October 2026

    Borman Professorial Chair

    He holds the Paul and Marlene Borman Professorial Chair of Applied Mathematics at Weizmann Institute of Science.

A language model matched the links in this timeline to people, organizations and papers (provisional, model-judged).

Career

  1. Since 1980Weizmann Institute of ScienceAssociate professor of applied mathematics, Professor of applied mathematics (Paul and Marlene Borman Professorial Chair)
  2. 2007–2010Université Paris Sciences et Lettres
  3. From 2006École Normale SupérieureInvited professor
  4. 1977–1980Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyResearcher
  5. University of WarwickPostdoctoral researcher

Education

  1. 1977Weizmann Institute of SciencePhD
  2. 1975Weizmann Institute of ScienceMSc
  3. From 1973Tel Aviv UniversityMathematics

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. How to share a secret1979 · Communications of the ACM · 13,730 citations
  2. A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems1978 · Communications of the ACM · 13,420 citations
  3. Identity-Based Cryptosystems and Signature Schemes2007 · Springer eBooks · 6,635 citations
  4. How To Prove Yourself: Practical Solutions to Identification and Signature Problems2007 · Springer eBooks · 3,943 citations
  5. Differential cryptanalysis of DES-like cryptosystems1991 · Journal of Cryptology · 2,906 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

  1. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 113 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Weizmann Institute of Science. Stanford University trained or employed 27 of the 113 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and employment links for major-prize and best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 33%Includes Weizmann Institute of Science. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 33% in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Weizmann Institute of Science. Our estimates of combined and median h-index at AI organizations, using current affiliations and OpenAlex records.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Adi Shamir - Wolf Foundation wolffund.org.il. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. Shamir | First Israeli Conference on Hardware and Side-Channel Attacks fichsa.sise.bgu.ac.il. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. Professor Adi Shamir FRS royalsociety.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. How to share a secret researchpapersfree.com. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. Academy of Europe: CV ae-info.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  6. Differential crypt analysis of DES-like cryptosystems cris.technion.ac.il. Checked 18 October 2026.
  7. [1901.10861] A Simple Explanation for the Existence of Adversarial Examples with Small Hamming Distance arxiv.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  8. Deep Neural Cryptography eprint.iacr.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  9. Adi Shamir | Global Young Scientists Summit gyss.nrf.gov.sg. Checked 18 October 2026.