Kristin Estella Lauter (born 1969) is an American mathematician and

cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gen ...

whose research interest is broadly in application of

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

and

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

in cryptography. She is particularly known for her work in the area of

elliptic curve cryptography Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys to provide equivalent security, compared to cryptosystems based on modula ...

. She was a researcher at

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

Redmond, Washington Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 73,256 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Redmond is best known as the home of Microsoft and Nintendo of America. The city h ...

, from 1999–2021 and the head of the Cryptography Group from 2008–2021; her group developed Microsoft SEAL. In April 2021, Lauter joined

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

AI Research (FAIR) as the West Coast Head of Research Science. She became the President-Elect of the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

in February 2014 and served as President February 1, 2015 - January 31, 2017.

Education and career

Lauter received her

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

, and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

, all in mathematics, from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, in 1990, 1991, and 1996, respectively. Prior to joining

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, she held positions as a visiting scholar at Max Planck Institut fur Mathematik in Bonn, Germany (1997), T.H. Hildebrandt research assistant professor at the University of Michigan (1996-1999), and a visiting researcher at Institut de Mathematiques Luminy in France (1999). In 1999, Lauter joined Microsoft to work on her research in

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

. She has worked on developing new cryptographic systems, research on post quantum systems, and researching to find faults in current cryptographic systems. In 2005, she worked with coworkers at Microsoft to develop a cryptographic algorithm from supersingular isogeny graphs. She created a HASH function from it and presented it at the

NIST hash function competition The NIST hash function competition was an open competition held by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop a new hash function called SHA-3 to complement the older SHA-1 and SHA-2. The competition was formally a ...

. Dr. Kristin Lauter is also known for her work in

homomorphic encryption Homomorphic encryption is a form of encryption that allows computations to be performed on encrypted data without first having to decrypt it. The resulting computations are left in an encrypted form which, when decrypted, result in an output th ...

, which has been commonly used in machine-learning, building

mathematical model A mathematical model is an abstract and concrete, abstract description of a concrete system using mathematics, mathematical concepts and language of mathematics, language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed ''mathematical m ...

s, private AI, and the collection of genomic data. She has also worked on encryption with the

Cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

. She has given many tutorials on homomorphic encryption for broad audiences. A specific tutorial on homomorphic encryption allowed her to meet some iDASH organizers to whom she explained her encryption techniques, such as

edit distance In computational linguistics and computer science, edit distance is a string metric, i.e. a way of quantifying how dissimilar two String (computing), strings (e.g., words) are to one another, that is measured by counting the minimum number of opera ...

and chi-squared statistics. Beginning in April 2021, Lauter joined Facebook AI Research as West Coast Head of Research Science, leading the Seattle and Menlo Park Labs with groups in Core Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, Natural Language Processing, and other areas.

Service

She is a co-founder of the Women in Numbers Network, a research collaboration community for women in number theory. The first conference was held in 2008 and it was called the WIN Conference. Groups of number theorists work on research and have published about 50 papers. She served on the Advisory Board of the

Banff International Research Station The Banff International Research Station (BIRS) for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery was established in 2003. It provides an independent research institute for the mathematical sciences in North America, a counterpart to the Oberwolfach Rese ...

and on the Council of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

. She served as president of the

2015–2017. From 2014 to 2016, Lauter served as a Council Member at Large for the American Mathematical Society. She currently serves on the board of trustees of the

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Califor ...

(MSRI); her term on the MSRI Board is 2018–2022.

Recognition

Lauter and her coauthors were awarded the

Selfridge Prize Algorithmic Number Theory Symposium (ANTS) is a biennial academic conference, first held in Cornell in 1994, constituting an international forum for the presentation of new research in computational number theory. They are devoted to algorithmic a ...

at ANTS VIII for their paper ''Computing Hilbert Class Polynomials''. She was elected to the 2015 Class of Fellows of the

"for contributions to arithmetic geometry and cryptography as well as service to the community." In 2017, she was selected as a fellow of the

in the inaugural class. She was chosen as the Pólya Lecturer for the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

, lasting from 2018–2020. In 2020 she was elected a

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific soci ...

(SIAM) with the citation "Kristin E. Lauter, Microsoft Research, is being recognized for the development of practical cryptography and for leadership in the mathematical community." In 2020, she was elected Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, in the Section on Mathematics. In 2021, Lauter was elected as an honorary member of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society. Real Sociedad Matemática Española (RSME), founded in 1911, is the oldest mathematical society of Spain. In 2022 she was selected to be the SIAM Block Community Lecturer.

References

External links

Meet a mathematician! Video Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lauter, Kristin 21st-century American mathematicians American cryptographers American number theorists Living people Microsoft employees University of Chicago alumni University of Michigan faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 1969 births Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women academics 21st-century American academics American women cryptographers Mathematicians from Wisconsin