**Russell Graham Impagliazzo ** is a professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego, specializing in computational complexity theory.

Education

Impagliazzo received a BA in mathematics from Wesleyan University. He obtained a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. His advisor was Manuel Blum. He joined the faculty of UCSD in 1989, having been a postdoc there from 1989 to 1991.

Contributions

Impagliazzo's contributions to complexity theory include:

Five worlds of complexity theory

Impagliazzo is well-known for proposing the "five worlds" of computational complexity theory, reflecting possible states of the world around the P versus NP problem. Understanding which world we live in is still a key motivating question in complexity theory and cryptography.

Awards

Impagliazzo has received the following awards: