Born December 31, 1945, Leonard Adleman is a computer scientist whose main CS
contribution was his work on creating the RSA encryption algorithm, which earned him the 2002 Turing Award. He earned his bachelor;s degree from UC Berkely in the field of mathematics, and later got his PhD in computer science. He currently is a professor at USC teaching molecular biology. For his research, he was awarded 1996 Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award and the 2002 ACM Turing Award, known as the Nobel Prize of Computer Science. Adlemans impact on the CS world is nothing short of amazing. His work and analysis in cryptosystems has lead to many future breakthroughs.