David Lieberman is a Research Staff Member at the Center for Communications Research (CCR-P) located in Princeton, New Jersey, one of eight divisions of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). A federally funded research center, CCR-P is set up to conduct basic research in support of the mission of the National Security Agency (NSA). There are about 100 people at CCR-P, of whom half form the research staff. Roughly 80% of the research staff have Ph.D.'s, of which 80% are in mathematics, with the remainder in allied areas. The role of CCR is to do long term research, creating new mathematical techniques to attack problems which are intractable by current methods. The problems arise in analysis of the algorithms employed for secure communications and in related areas such as processing signals to remove noise and distortion.
Modern communications technology depends heavily on fields of pure mathematics such as algebraic geometry and number theory. Increasingly sophisticated mathematics is required for the design and analysis of these systems. This trend has been accelerated by the increasing demand to protect commercial and personal data on the rapidly growing electronic communications networks, and by the increasing participation of the university research community to meet this demand. Examples include the use of the theory of elliptic curves to implement secure public cryptography algorithms, and use of the techniques of the geometry of algebraic curves to provide better methods for detecting and correcting errors in data transmission. Both of these advances utilize some of the most recent, and subtle, results from arithmetical algebraic geometry.
An important role played by CCR is to serve as a bridge for NSA to the academic community. In particular, CCR helps to bring new ideas from the academic research community to bear on the solution of the problems, and provides the opportunity for talented academic mathematicians to visit and consult. CCR runs annual summer programs, inviting 20 to 30 visitors to join with the permanent staff for a six to eight week research program. The visitors range from graduate students to renowned emeritus professors. The summer programs are focused on a particular problem area. The projects provide a way for the Center to develop expertise in new areas, and for the visitors to become directly involved at the research frontier of an important applied problem. The summer sessions also serve as the main method by which new talent joins the CCR staff. In addition to the summer studies CCR often has longer term visitors, with graduate students and faculty on sabbatical coming for one year appointments. Most of the current CCR research staff came to CCR initially as a participant in one of these programs.
David has an A.B. in Mathematics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although he was offered a job at IDA after graduate school, he did not join the Institute until ten years later in 1977. He spent those years in academia, primarily at Brandeis University, where he became a tenured full professor. David joined IDA after having participated in several summer programs. He was hired as Deputy Director of CCR-P and later served for five years as Director. He found that although he was able to do some research along with his administrative duties, he really wanted to do research full-time, and joined the research staff in 1990. For David, the application of mathematics has always served to illuminate the meaning of the theoretical development, and he has always found that working at CCR has led him to a much more solid and profound understanding of mathematical techniques. He finds it easiest to first appreciate the power of a technique in solving real problems, and then to study the limitations and extensions of the method.
When hiring, the primary emphasis at CCR is not the field of academic expertise, but rather talent, particularly at problem solving. Exceptional performance on the Putnam exam has proven to be a good indicator of potentially strong contributors to the CCR program. Problems at CCR require a strong broad mathematical background, and the willingness and ability to master new material (math, engineering, computer science) as required. Research at CCR requires a strong foundation in algebra, particularly linear algebra and Galois theory, and increasingly draws on algebraic geometry, and number theory. Familiarity with the methods of statistical inference, data analysis, and statistical modeling is invaluable, as is the ability to use the computer to formulate, investigate and solve substantial mathematical problems. Good communication and writing skills, and the ability to work as part of a team, are also highly desirable traits.
