Rate My Professor Salil Vadhan

Salil Vadhan is the Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He serves as Director of Graduate Studies for Computer Science and Faculty Director of the OpenDP open-source software project. Vadhan earned an A.B. summa cum laude in Mathematics and Computer Science from Harvard University in 1995, a Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics with Distinction from Churchill College, Cambridge University in 1996, and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999, where his thesis on statistical zero-knowledge proofs was advised by Shafi Goldwasser. He joined Harvard as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in 2001, advancing to Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in 2004, Gordon McKay Professor in 2007, and his current Vicky Joseph Professorship in 2009. Additional appointments include Harvard College Professor from 2016 to 2021, Area Chair for Computer Science from 2017 to 2019 (co-chair from 2018), and Director of the Harvard Center for Research on Computation and Society from 2008 to 2011 and 2014 to 2015. He has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study (2000–2001), UC Berkeley as Miller Visiting Professor (2007–2008), Stanford University (2011–2012), National Chiao-Tung University (2015–2016), University of Sydney (2024), and Bocconi University (2024).