Ralph Merkle

Renowned cryptographer known for devising Merkle's Puzzles, co-inventing the Merkle–Hellman knapsack cryptosystem, and inventing cryptographic hashing and Merkle trees. Held positions at Elxsi, Xerox PARC, and Zyvex. Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech, senior research fellow at IMM, faculty member at Singularity University. Recipient of the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 2010. Published works on molecular manipulation and self-replicating machines.