Martin Edward Hellman

Co-inventor of public key cryptography, Hellman co-authored with Whitfield Diffie the landmark 1976 paper *New Directions in Cryptography*. It introduced a radically new method of distributing cryptographic keys, which went far toward solving one of the fundamental problems of cryptography, key distribution. The paper has become known as the foundation of Diffie–Hellman key exchange.

The article also appeared to have stimulated the almost immediate public development of a new class of encryption algorithms, the asymmetric key algorithms. Hellman and Whitfield Diffie were awarded the Marconi Fellowship and accompanying prize in 2000 for work on public-key cryptography and for helping make cryptography a legitimate area of academic research.