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Cyber security expert snags 2006 teaching award
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David Wagner
PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO
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When students in David Wagner’s class give him a hard time about something he just said or leave class debating a point in his lecture, he knows he’s succeeded as a teacher.
“My ideal classroom scenario is one where students are active learners forming their own conclusions,” Wagner says. “I try to get them engaged in debating the material or puzzling through it themselves.”
Wagner (M.S.’99, Ph.D.’00 CS), assistant professor of computer science in the College’s EECS department, was one of three faculty to receive the 2006 Distinguished Teaching Award, Berkeley’s highest honor for instruction. Granted by the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate's Committee on Teaching, the award has been bestowed on only 219 teachers since its inception in 1959.
During his years working toward his undergraduate degree in math from Princeton University, then as a graduate student at Berkeley, he had very little experience as a teacher and a lot of trepidation about going into the field. But, after joining the Berkeley faculty in 2000, he knew he'd made the right decision.
“Not only did I like the teaching, I loved it,” he says. Wagner is recognized as one of the world’s leading cryptographers and experts in computer security. In a letter recommending him for the award, University Professor Richard Karp of EECS said that Wagner’s stature as a researcher informs his teaching.
“He has invented most of the main techniques for analysis of cryptographic protocols, won early fame for his exploits in breaking cryptographic systems, and has contributed greatly to providing a rigorous foundation for the field of software security,” Karp wrote.
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