International Association for Cryptologic Research

International Association
for Cryptologic Research

IACR News item: 03 January 2019

Announcement Announcement

Dear members of the IACR

The year 2018 saw considerable growth for IACR: The first RWC sponsored by IACR took place in Zurich, attended by 600 people; the largest Crypto ever with 641 attendees, was held at UCSB in August; and the IACR counts a record number of more than 2100 members for the year 2019.

On behalf of everyone in the field, I'd like to thank the organizers of conferences, workshops, schools, and all further activities of the IACR, as well as the Board members and everyone else working behind the scene, for their efforts in making this possible.

As we move into 2019, let me mention some new developments.

Test-of-time award for the General Conferences

A new Test-of-time Award has been established recently and will start in 2019. It is given out yearly for each one of the three IACR General Conferences: Eurocrypt, Crypto, and Asiacrypt. The award honors "a paper with a lasting impact on the field" and will be given at the conference in year X to a paper published at the same conference in year X - 15.

The awards are selected by a yearly committee with five members, of which two members are appointed by Board and three are program chairs for the respective conferences in year X. This year's committee is chaired by Dan Boneh. Please see the details at https://iacr.org/testoftime/

Silvio Micali to hold the IACR Distinguished Lecture 2020

At its meeting in August, the Board has invited Silvio Micali to the hold the 2020 IACR Distinguished Lecture. This lecture is held annually and rotates between the three IACR General Conferences. We look forward to Silvio Micali's lecture at Crypto 2020!

For more information about the IACR Distinguished Lecture, see the website at https://iacr.org/publications/dl/

Board members

The IACR 2018 election was held in October/November to fill three of nine IACR Director positions. Congratulations to Michel Abdalla, Nadia Heninger, and Anna Lysyanskaya for being elected as directors! Michel and Anna were re-elected to their director positions and Nadia joins as a new director.

Among the incumbents of director positions, Phil Rogaway did not run for election and leaves the Board. Likewise the General Chairs of the 2019 General Conferences leave the Board and will again have more time to enjoy a conference as a guest: Orr Dunkelman, Tal Rabin, and Josef Pieprzyk. Let me thank all of them for their memorable contributions to the IACR!

Furthermore, Mitsuru Matsui has been elected as the chair of the Asiacrypt Steering Committee; this committee selects the venues for Asiacrypt as set forth in IACR's operational procedures (https://iacr.org/docs/steering.pdf). Thanks to Xuejia Lai for his work in this role until 2018.

Next IACR events

To find out more about your IACR and the work of the Board of Directors, please visit https://www.iacr.org and see the minutes of meeting at https://www.iacr.org/docs/minutes/

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2019!

Christian Cachin
IACR President

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