Introduction
Brent Waters is an American computer scientist, specializing in cryptography and computer security. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin.
Education
Waters attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated summa cum laude in 2000 with a B.S. in computer science. He earned a Ph.D. in computer science from Princeton University in 2004.
Academic career
Waters completed his post-doctoral work at Stanford University from 2004 to 2005, hosted by Dan Boneh, and then worked at SRI International as a computer scientist until 2008. In 2008, he joined the University of Texas at Austin, where he currently holds the title of Professor in the Department of Computer Science.
In 2005, Waters first proposed the concepts of attribute-based encryption and functional encryption with Amit Sahai. In 2013, Waters, along with Amit Sahai, Sanjam Garg, Craig Gentry, Shai Halevi, and Mariana Raykova, published a proof of concept of the indistinguishability obfuscation primitive.
Awards
Waters was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2010, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2011. In 2015, he was awarded the Grace Murray Hopper Award for the introduction and development of the concepts of attribute-based encryption and functional encryption.