Don Coppersmith

Don Coppersmith (born Template:Abbr 1950) is a cryptographer and mathematician. He was involved in the design of the Data Encryption Standard block cipher at IBM, particularly the design of the S-boxes, strengthening them against differential cryptanalysis.<ref name="coppersmith">Template:Cite journal </ref> He also improved the quantum Fourier transform discovered by Peter Shor in the same year (1994).<ref name="dc_qft">Template:Cite journal </ref> He has also worked on algorithms for computing discrete logarithms, the cryptanalysis of RSA, methods for rapid matrix multiplication (see Coppersmith–Winograd algorithm) and IBM's MARS cipher. He is also a co-designer of the SEAL and Scream ciphers.

In 1972, Coppersmith obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Masters and Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University in 1975 and 1977 respectively.<ref name="coppersmith"/> He was a Putnam Fellow each year from 1968–1971, becoming the first four-time Putnam Fellow in history.<ref name="MMA">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1998, he started Ponder This, an online monthly column on mathematical puzzles and problems. In October 2005, the column was taken over by James Shearer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Around that same time, he left IBM and began working at the IDA Center for Communications Research, Princeton.<ref> Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 2022, Coppersmith was awarded the Levchin Prize for “foundational innovations in cryptanalysis”<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> .

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