Dr. Merkle received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1979 where he co-invented public key cryptography. He joined Xerox PARC in 1988, where hepursued research in computational nanotechnology until 1999. He is now a Principal Fellow at Zyvex, where he continues to pursue research in nanotechnology. He chaired the Fourth and Fifth Foresight Conferences on Nanotechnology, was co-recipient of the 1998 Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology for theory, and was co-recipient of the ACM's Kanellakis Award for Theory and Practice, the 2000 RSA Award in Mathematics, and the IEEE Kobayashi Award. Dr. Merkle has published and spoken extensively.