Interview
Interview: Sanjam Garg
Sanjam Garg is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests are in cryptography and security. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013 and his undergraduate degree from IIT Delhi in 2008. His research has been recognized with best paper awards at EUROCRYPT 2013, CRYPTO 2017 and EUROCRYPT 2018
Dr Sanjam has been felicitated with the Distinguished Alumni Award 2020 under the Graduates of Last Decade category.
He talks to Dr Vanita Srivastava of the Communication Cell on his interest in cryptography, the skills he learnt at IIT Delhi and more.
Edited excerpts:
I was fortunate to be surrounded by extremely talented faculty and peers at IIT Delhi. My interactions with them instilled in me a deep appreciation for how computers worked and a desire to further our understanding in this field. I ended up pursuing research in this field. At a personal level, my experiences at IIT helped me build confidence in myself and this has helped me travel through my professional journey.
Your research area is focussed on cryptography and security, and more broadly in theoretical computer science. Can you please tell a bit more about your research and how did you develop an interest in this area?
Cryptography provides powerful tools for encrypting static data, e.g. your Whatsapp messages. A foundational question in cryptography has been to develop similar protections for computer software. Can we have a method to encrypt computer programs such that they can still be executed while hiding the code? My research has shown that this can indeed be done securely. The insights developed along the way have led us to numerous surprising implications. My interest in breaking computer systems actually goes back to my first year as a student at IIT Delhi. During the four years, I switched from wanting to break things to actually securing them and ended up writing my bachelor's thesis in cryptography. The field has continued to fascinate me since then.
What does this award mean to you?
This recognition from IIT Delhi is very special for me, as I started my career and my adult life from here.
What would you like to convey to the young students of IIT Delhi?
I would encourage our young students to start thinking of ways to stay connected with the campus and find meaningful ways to give back to IIT Delhi. Our institution stands out in the global market with the way our Alumni have been contributing to the society. We need to strengthen our institution, improve the infrastructure, quality of innovation and research and competitiveness in the global markets.
What was the most important takeway from your stay at IIT Delhi?
How did the institute help in shaping your personality and career?