Tal Rabin facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tal Rabin
Tal Rabin
Born	1962 (age 62–63) Newton, Massachusetts, United States
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Awards	American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016) Woman of Vision (2014)
Scientific career
Fields	Computer science
Institutions	University of Pennsylvania, Thomas J. Watson Research Center
Thesis	Fault Tolerant and Secure Computations in Distributed Systems (1995)
Doctoral advisor	Michael Ben Or

Tal Rabin (born 1962) is a super smart computer scientist. She is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She also works as a Director at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Before this, she led research at the Algorand Foundation. She also headed the cryptography research group at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center.

About Tal Rabin

Tal Rabin was born in Massachusetts, USA. She grew up in Jerusalem, Israel. As a kid, she loved solving riddles. She also enjoyed playing strategic games. Her father, Michael O. Rabin, is a famous computer scientist. He made many important discoveries in computing and cryptography. Tal and her father even wrote a paper together! She is also a mom to two daughters.

Her Amazing Career

Tal Rabin earned her first degree in 1986. This was her Bachelor of Science (BSc) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She continued her studies there. She got her Master of Science (MSc) in 1988. Then, she earned her PhD in 1994. Her professor, Michael Ben-Or, guided her studies.

From 1994 to 1996, she was a special researcher at MIT. After that, she joined IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. She became the head of their cryptography group in 1997. In 2020, she became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Making the Internet Safe

Tal Rabin's main work is in cryptography and network security. She designs clever ways to keep information safe online. This includes creating strong encryption methods. Encryption scrambles messages so only the right people can read them.

She also studies secure ways for computers to work together. This is called distributed computing. She explores the basic ideas behind cryptography. Her work also involves number theory and how algorithms work. She has written over 100 papers and has five patents.

Her research helps make online communication very secure. For example, she works on digital signatures. These are like electronic fingerprints. They help prove who sent a message. They are used a lot for safe web communication.

Another area she focuses on is called secret sharing. This is a way to split a secret into many pieces. Each piece is useless alone. But if you put enough pieces together, you can get the secret. She often works with Rosario Gennaro and Hugo Krawczyk on these topics.

Sharing Knowledge and Inspiring Others

Tal Rabin has been part of many important cryptography conferences. These include TCC, Crypto, PKC, and Eurocrypt. She was also a council member for the Computing Community Consortium. She helped lead SIGACT, a group for computer scientists. She was also on the editorial board for the Journal of Cryptology.

She started and helps organize the Women in Theory Workshop. This event happens every two years. It helps female graduate students in computer science. She also works to make encryption easier for everyone to understand. In 2011, she joined the World Science Festival in New York City. In 2014, she took part in the WNYC Science Fair. These events help explain science to the public.

Awesome Awards

Tal Rabin has received many important awards for her work:

• 2014: Named one of the 22 most powerful women engineers in the world by Business Insider.
• 2014: Received the Woman of Vision award for her amazing new ideas. This was from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.
• 2015: Became an IACR Fellow. This is from the International Association for Cryptologic Research.
• 2016: Became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• 2017: Became an ACM Fellow.
• 2018: Named one of America's Top 50 Women In Tech by Forbes magazine.
• 2019: Won The RSA Award for Excellence in Mathematics.
• 2023: Received The Dijkstra Prize for her work in secure multiparty computation (MPC).

See also

• In Spanish: Tal Rabin para niños