Cynthia Dwork

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Cynthia Dwork

| image = Cynthia Dwork lectures at Harvard Kennedy School.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Dwork lectures at Harvard Kennedy School in 2018

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1958|6|27|mf=yes}}

| birth_place =

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality =

| alma_mater = Princeton University (BSE)
Cornell University (PhD)

| thesis_title = Bounds on Fundamental Problems in Parallel and Distributed Computation

| thesis_url = http://hdl.handle.net/1813/6427

| thesis_year = 1984

| doctoral_advisor =John Hopcroft{{Cite thesis | title=Bounds on Fundamental Problems in Parallel and Distributed Computation | last1=Dwork | first1=Cynthia | year=1983| degree = PhD|publisher=Cornell University | url=https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/6427| website=cornell.edu|hdl=1813/6427|oclc=634017620}} {{free access}}

| doctoral_students =

| workplaces = IBM Research
Microsoft Research
Harvard University

| known_for = Differential privacy
Non-Malleable Cryptography
Proof-of-work

| footnotes =

| ethnicity =

| field = Computer science

| awards = {{Plainlist|

National Medal of Science (2025)
STOC 30-year Test-of-Time award (2022)
RSA Award for Excellence in Mathematics (2022)
Paris Kanellakis Award (2021)
Knuth Prize (2020)
Hamming Medal (2020)
Gödel Prize (2017)
TCC Test-of-Time Award (2016)
Dijkstra Prize (2007)}}

| website = {{URL|https://dwork.seas.harvard.edu/}}

}}

Cynthia Dwork (born June 27, 1958{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}) is an American computer scientist renowned for her contributions to cryptography, distributed computing, and algorithmic fairness. She is one of the inventors of differential privacy and proof-of-work.

Dwork works at Harvard University, where she is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Affiliated Professor at Harvard Law School and Harvard's Department of Statistics.

Early life and education

Dwork received her B.S.E. from Princeton University in 1979, graduating Cum Laude, and receiving the Charles Ira Young Award for Excellence in Independent Research.

Dwork received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1983 for research supervised by John Hopcroft.{{cite web|last=Hopcroft|first=John|title=John Hopcroft's Webpage|url=http://www.cs.cornell.edu/jeh/|access-date=14 March 2013}}{{MathGenealogy}}

Career and research

Dwork is known for her research placing privacy-preserving data analysis on a mathematically rigorous foundation, including the invention of differential privacy in the early to mid 2000s, a strong privacy guarantee frequently permitting highly accurate data analysis.{{cite web |last1=Hartnett |first1=Kevin |date=23 November 2016 |title=How to Force Our Machines to Play Fair |url=https://www.quantamagazine.org/making-algorithms-fair-an-interview-with-cynthia-dwork-20161123 |access-date=2023-12-15 |website=Quanta Magazine |publisher=quantamagazine.org}} The definition of differential privacy relies on the notion of indistinguishability of the outputs irrespective of whether an individual has contributed their data or not. This is typically achieved by adding small amounts of noise either to the input data or to outputs of computations performed on the data.{{Cite news|url=https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2016/06/behind-differential-privacy-apples-way-see-your-data-without-seeing-you|title=Behind "Differential Privacy," Apple's Way to See Your Data Without Seeing You|date=2016-06-16|work=Wireless Week|access-date=2018-02-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180204124011/https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2016/06/behind-differential-privacy-apples-way-see-your-data-without-seeing-you|archive-date=2018-02-04|url-status=dead}} She uses a systems-based approach to studying fairness in algorithms including those used for placing ads.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/facebook-ad-discrimination/518718/|title=When Algorithms Don't Account for Civil Rights|last=White|first=Gillian B.|work=The Atlantic|access-date=2018-02-03|language=en-US}} Dwork has also made contributions in cryptography and distributed computing, and is a recipient of the Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize for her early work on the foundations of fault-tolerant systems.{{cite web|last1=Knies|first1=Rob|title=Microsoft Research's Dwork Wins 2007 Dijkstra Prize|url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/microsoft-researchs-dwork-wins-2007-dijkstra-prize/|website=Microsoft Research Blog|publisher=Microsoft|access-date=14 March 2017|date=2007-08-09}}

Her contributions in cryptography include non-malleable cryptography with Danny Dolev and Moni Naor in 1991, the first lattice-based cryptosystem with Miklós Ajtai in 1997, which was also the first public-key cryptosystem for which breaking a random instance is as hard as solving the hardest instance of the underlying mathematical problem ("worst-case/average-case equivalence"). With Naor she also first presented the idea of, and a technique for, combating e-mail spam by requiring a proof of computational effort, also known as proof-of-work — a key technology underlying hashcash and bitcoin.

Selected works

Her publications{{Google scholar id}} include:

{{Cite journal

| title=Consensus in the presence of partial synchrony

| last1=Dwork | first1=Cynthia

| last2=Lynch | first2=Nancy | author-link2=Nancy Lynch

| last3=Stockmeyer | first3=Larry | author-link3=Larry Stockmeyer

| journal=Journal of the ACM

| volume=35

| issue=2

| year=1988

| pages=288–323

| doi=10.1145/42282.42283

| citeseerx=10.1.1.13.3423 | s2cid=17007235 }} — this paper received the Dijkstra Prize in 2007.

{{Cite book

| title=The Algorithmic Foundations of Differential Privacy

| series=Foundations and Trends in Theoretical Computer Science

| last1=Dwork |first1=Cynthia

| last2=Roth |first2=Aaron

| publisher=Now Publishers

| url=http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~aaroth/Papers/privacybook.pdf

| year=2014

| isbn=978-1601988188}}

Awards and honors

She was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) in 2008,{{cite web|url=http://www.amacad.org/news/new2008.aspx|title=Academy Home - American Academy of Arts & Sciences|website=Amacad.org|access-date=10 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090618193601/http://www.amacad.org/news/new2008.aspx|archive-date=18 June 2009|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/engineering/news/archive/?id=420|title=News - School of Engineering and Applied Science|website=Princeton.edu|access-date=10 April 2018}} as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2008, as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014, as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2015,{{citation|url=http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2015/fellows-2015|title=ACM Fellows Named for Computing Innovations that Are Advancing Technology in the Digital Age|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|year=2015|access-date=2015-12-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151209221613/http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2015/fellows-2015|archive-date=2015-12-09|url-status=dead}}. and as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2016.{{cite web|url=http://asorblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2016-APS-New-Members.pdf|title=Election of New Members at the American Philosophical Society's 2016 Spring Meeting|website=Asorblog.org|access-date=10 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180214073413/http://asorblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2016-APS-New-Members.pdf|archive-date=14 February 2018|url-status=dead}}

Dwork received a number of awards for her work.

In 2007, she received her first test-of-time, the Dijkstra Prize, for her work on consensus problems together with Nancy Lynch and Larry Stockmeyer.PODC web site: [http://www.podc.org/podc2007/dijkstra.shtml Dijkstra Prize 2007].{{Cite journal

| last=Bortnikov | first=Edward

| title=Review of DISC '07

| journal=ACM SIGACT News

| volume=38

| issue=4

| year=2007

| pages=49–53

| issn=0163-5700

| doi=10.1145/1345189

}}.

In 2009, she won the PET Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies.{{cite web|url=https://petsymposium.org/award/winners.php|title=PET Award|website=Petsymposium.org|access-date=7 July 2022}}
In 2016, both the International Association for Cryptologic Research 2016 TCC Test-of-Time Award{{cite web|url=https://www.iacr.org/workshops/tcc/awards.html|title=TCC Test-of-Time Award}} and the 2017 Gödel Prize were awarded to Cynthia Dwork, Frank McSherry, Kobbi Nissim and Adam D. Smith for their seminal paper that introduced differential privacy.{{cite web|url=http://eatcs.org/index.php/component/content/article/1-news/2450-2017-godel-prize|title=2017 Gödel Prize|first=Efi|last=Chita|website=Eatcs.org|access-date=10 April 2018}}
In 2020, she received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal for "foundational work in privacy, cryptography, and distributed computing, and for leadership in developing differential privacy."{{cite web |url=https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/hamming_rl.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180509220632/https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/hamming_rl.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 9, 2018 |title=IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal Recipients|website=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) |access-date=20 December 2019}}
She is the 2020 winner of the Knuth Prize.{{cite web|url=http://www.sigact.org/prizes/knuth/citation2020.pdf|title=2020 Knuth Prize Citation|publisher=ACM SIGACT|access-date=8 May 2020}}
She is a co-winner of the 2021 ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award for her and her co-authors' "fundamental contributions to the development of differential privacy".{{cite web|url=https://awards.acm.org/kanellakis|title=2021 ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award}}
She is co-winner of the 2022 RSA Award for Excellence in Mathematics for "contributions to the foundation of privacy and to the foundations of cryptography".{{cite web|url=https://www.rsaconference.com/library/press-release/rsa-conference-2022-announces-recipients-of-lifetime-achievement-award|title=Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics, Co-Sponsored by IACR}}
In 2022, her 1991 STOC paper, with Dolev and Naor, “Non-Malleable Cryptography,”{{cite journal

| first1 = Danny

| last1 = Dolev

| author2-link = Cynthia Dwork

| first2 = Cynthia

| last2 = Dwork

| author3-link = Moni Naor

| first3 = Moni

| last3 = Naor

| title = Non-Malleable Cryptography

| journal = SIAM Journal on Computing

| volume = 30

| issue = 2

| pages = 391–437

| year = 2000

| doi = 10.1137/S0097539795291562

| citeseerx = 10.1.1.49.4643

}} won a STOC 30-year Test-of Time award.{{cite web|url=https://sigact.org/prizes/stoc_tot/citation2022.html|title=The 30-year Test-of Time award recognizes three seminal papers that were published in STOC 1990 and 1991}}

In 2025, Dwork was a recipient of the National Medal of Science.{{cite web | author=The White House | title=President Biden Honors Nation’s Leading Scientists, Technologists, and Innovators | website=The White House | date=3 January 2025 | url=https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2025/01/03/president-biden-honors-nations-leading-scientists-technologists-and-innovators/ | access-date=4 January 2025}}

Personal life

Dwork is the daughter of American mathematician Bernard Dwork,{{cite journal |last1=Katz |first1=Nicholas M. |last2=Tate |first2=John |date=March 1999 |title=Bernard Dwork (1923-1998) |journal=Notices of the AMS |volume=46 | issue=3 |pages=338-343 | url=https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/199903/199903FullIssue.pdf?adat=March%201999&trk=&cat=none&type=.pdf |issn=0002-9920 }} and sister of historian Debórah Dwork.

She has a black belt in taekwondo.{{Cite web | url=https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2016/02/leading-silicon-valley-computer-scientist-to-join-harvard-faculty | title=Leading Silicon Valley computer scientist to join Harvard faculty| date=2016-02-19}}