ACM named Elisa Bertino of Purdue University the 2019-2020 ACM Athena Lecturer for pioneering and impactful contributions to data management, security, and privacy, along with outstanding contributions to broadening participation in computing via professional leadership and mentoring. Bertino is recognized as one of the top data management and data security experts in the world, and has made contributions to data security and privacy in many different contexts, including context-based access control; digital identity management; data integrity; Internet of Things and sensor network security; secure and privacy-preserving provenance; privacy-preserving analytics; protection from insider threats; and cloud security. Through these efforts, she provided formal foundations and implementations of mechanisms that have become commonplace in industrial products. Bertino is also an outstanding educator and mentor who has been especially active in encouraging young women to pursue careers in computing.

Initiated in 2006, the ACM Athena Lecturer Award celebrates women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science. The award carries a cash prize of $25,000, with financial support provided by Two Sigma. The Athena Lecturer is invited to present a lecture at an ACM event. Bertino chose to give her Athena Lecture at the ACM Conference on Data Application, Security and Privacy (CODASPY 2019) in Dallas, Texas.

“Elisa Bertino’s work has made fundamental contributions that allow people access to systems based on their roles, the time of day, as well as their locations,” said ACM President Cherri M. Pancake. In addition, “Bertino has had a lasting impact on the field, through her participation with the ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC), as well as her mentorship of younger colleagues.”

Bertino will formally receive the Athena Lecturer Award at ACM’s annual awards banquet on June 15 in San Francisco.

Website: 

Association for Computing Machinery. ACM Awards 2019.  "Elisa Bertino Named ACM 2019-2020 Athena Lecturer for Contributions to Data Management, Security and Privacy". https://awards.acm.org/about/2019-athena