Johan Håstad graduated from M.I.T. in 1986. His advisor was Shafi Goldwasser. His CS interests include cryptography, complexity theory and approximability of NP-hard optimization problems. He also enjoys table tennis.

Avi Wigderson graduated from Princeton University in 1983 under the supervision of Richard Lipton. He is interested in all aspects of theoretical computer science and their interactions with mathematics and the sciences. He likes collaborating (in general and) with Johan.