Most of my research has been on
cryptography,
the mathematical treatment of secure communication.
I did my undergrad at UC Berkeley
and my Ph.D. at
MIT, in the
Theory of Computation group.
There I studied under
Silvio Micali.
After graduating (1991) I worked at
IBM
as a security architect,
then came to UCD (1994), where I worked, obsessively,
for the next 30 years.
For many of those years I split my time about
equally between the USA and Thailand, which came to be my second home.
My research has focused on obtaining
provably good solutions to protocol problems of genuine utility to
people’s privacy and security.
I’ve been lucky enough
to get some nice recognition for this work, including the
Levchin prize (2016),
PET Award (2015),
IACR Fellow (2012),
ACM Paris Kanellakis Award (2009),
and the
RSA Award in Mathematics (2003).
While I loved being a cryptographer and itinerant professor,
by the time social media and smartphones took off,
I had grown deeply skeptical of the claimed benefits of CS.
They routinely seem dwarfed by the harms we helped birth.
Correspondingly, I shifted much of my attention
to social and ethical issues connected to technology,
especially the climate crisis and the
problem of mass surveillance.
I shifted much of my university teaching to ethics
(especially course ECS 188).
I support social justice and environmental movements, including
BLM,
JVP, and
XR.
I am particularly appalled by Israel’s
ongoing genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza.
I am ashamed by the fascist drift of the USA.
I retired from UCD in July of 2024, spending my last term
teaching a course on cryptography and an experimental course on
Black Mirror.
I was sad to leave UCD,
but I had gotten old enough to plausibly retire,
and my views had drifted from those of my peers
to the point that I no longer felt like I belonged
where I was.
Teaching has been as central to my life as research.
I am honored to have taught thousands of
university students, over the years,
and some special elementary school,
middle school, and high school students, too.
These days, I’m doing some mentoring for a non-profit called
National Math Stars.
I’d be happy to do a bit more K-12
teaching or curriculum design.
I have strong views on what K-12 math education
should be like, and how far it is from where we are.
Personal information:
(1) my wife is Bongkotrattana Lailert.
She goes by Kot (say goat quickly
and with a low tone of voice).
My son
Banlu,
age 15, loves rock climbing. He also
competes.
I am currently living full-time in Portland, Oregon.
My sister, Jodi Walder, also lives in Portland.
She is amazing at helping students
navigate college admissions.
(2) I am profoundly faceblind
(among other unhappy cognitive traits).
If I see you, ought to know you, but seem not to
recognize you, please don’t take offense:
it isn’t smugness or indifference.
If your words or expression suggest that I should know you,
there’s a good chance that I’m trying desperately
to figure out who you are.
