Noam Nisan

Noam Nisan
Name	Noam Nisan
Birth date	1961
Birth place	Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality	Israeli and British
Fields	Computer science, Cryptography, Algorithmic game theory, Computational complexity, Distributed computing
Institutions	Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, University College London, Microsoft Research, Google Research
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	David Peleg
Notable students	(selected) Tim Roughgarden, Éva Tardos, Michael Schapira
Known for	Pseudorandom generators, communication complexity, mechanism design, property testing

Noam Nisan Noam Nisan is an Israeli computer scientist known for foundational work in theoretical computer science, cryptography, algorithmic game theory, and distributed computation. He has held academic and industrial research positions at institutions such as the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University College London, Microsoft Research, and Google Research, and has collaborated with leading researchers worldwide. His contributions span pseudorandomness, communication complexity, and mechanism design, influencing theory and applications across MIT, Stanford University, Princeton University, Harvard University, and Carnegie Mellon University communities.

Early life and education

Nisan was born in Tel Aviv and raised in Israel, where he attended schools connected to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem system before pursuing higher studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed undergraduate work and advanced degrees under advisors linked to the Israeli theoretical computer science community, intersecting with researchers from Weizmann Institute of Science, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. During his graduate training he engaged with contemporaries tied to projects at Microsoft Research and workshops affiliated with DIMACS and the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

Academic career and positions

Nisan has held faculty appointments at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and visiting roles at institutions including University College London, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Carnegie Mellon University. He has been affiliated with industrial labs including Microsoft Research and Google Research, contributing to collaborative programs with Bell Labs alumni and visiting networks involving IBM Research and Intel Labs. Nisan served on program committees for conferences such as STOC, FOCS, ICALP, SODA, and COLT, and participated in initiatives at the Royal Society and the European Research Council. He has been a fellow or visiting scholar at centers including the Simons Institute and the Institute for Advanced Study.

Research contributions and major works

Nisan's research includes seminal results in pseudorandomness, communication complexity, and algorithmic mechanism design. In pseudorandom generators and derandomization he connected notions advanced at MIT, Princeton University, and UC Berkeley with complexity-theoretic frameworks discussed at STOC and FOCS. His communication complexity work built on foundations from Yao-style protocols and related to research by Andrew Yao, Eve Kushilevitz, and Noga Alon, influencing lower bounds in distributed computing studied at SIGCOMM and PODC. In algorithmic game theory and mechanism design he coauthored influential texts and papers that bridged ideas from John Nash-inspired equilibrium analysis, Leonid Hurwicz-style mechanism design, and market algorithms advanced at Microsoft Research and Google Research. Nisan contributed to property testing, sublinear algorithms, and randomness extractors, connecting to work from Oded Goldreich, Madhu Sudan, and Salil Vadhan. He developed models and proofs that informed auction design research tied to Vickrey auctions, Myerson optimal auctions, and practical systems in online advertising explored by Yahoo! and Google. Collaborations with scholars from Columbia University, Yale University, Cornell University, and Brown University expanded applications in cryptographic protocols, secure multiparty computation, and distributed resource allocation.

Awards and honors

Nisan's honors include recognition by leading theoretical computer science organizations and academic institutions. He has been a keynote and invited speaker at conferences such as STOC, FOCS, ICALP, and the International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming. He received fellowships and awards associated with bodies like the ACM, the European Research Council, and national science foundations connected to Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. His work has been cited in award citations associated with collaborators at Microsoft Research and laureates tied to the Turing Award community, and he has been a visiting scholar at elite centers including the Institute for Advanced Study and the Simons Institute.

Selected publications

- Nisan, with collaborators including researchers from Harvard University, MIT, and Princeton University, produced papers on pseudorandomness published in proceedings of STOC and FOCS. - Foundational communication complexity papers coauthored with members of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology appear in Journal of the ACM and conference volumes for ICALP. - Textbooks and monographs on algorithmic game theory coauthored with scholars affiliated with Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Columbia University have been used in courses at Carnegie Mellon University and Oxford University. - Work on mechanism design for online markets and auctions, with links to practical systems at Google Research and Microsoft Research, has been influential in workshops at EC (ACM Conference on Economics and Computation) and WINE. - Papers on property testing and sublinear algorithms with collaborators from Tel Aviv University and Weizmann Institute of Science were presented at SODA and COLT.

Teaching and mentorship

Nisan has taught courses in algorithms, complexity theory, cryptography, and algorithmic game theory at institutions such as the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and University College London, supervising students who later held positions at Stanford University, Princeton University, MIT, Microsoft Research, and Google Research. His doctoral and postdoctoral advisees have contributed to research streams at ETH Zurich, EPFL, and University of Cambridge, and have served on program committees for STOC and FOCS. He has participated in summer schools and workshops associated with DIMACS, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, and the European Research Council training networks.

Category:Israeli computer scientists Category:Theoretical computer scientists Category:Cryptographers