Going beyond the basic challenge of private communication, over the last 35 years cryptography has become the general study of correctness and privacy of computation in the presence of a computationally bounded adversary, and as such it has changed how we think about proofs, reductions, randomness, secrets, and information. In this talk I will discuss some beautiful developments in the theory of computing through this cryptographic lens, and the role cryptography can play in the next successful shift from local to global computation.

Shafi Goldwasser is the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a co-leader of the cryptography and information security group. Her foundational work in cryptography and computational complexity has been recognized with several major honors, including the G?del Prize (twice), the RSA Award in Mathematics, and (with Silvio Micali) the 2012 Turing Award.