Kevin McCurley

Kevin Snow McCurley research scientist at Google. He has written publications about information retrieval, algorithms, parallel computing, cryptography, and number theory.

Early life and education When he was a child, McCurley had built model planes and cars, and he enjoyed making things with his hands.

In 1981, McCurley received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation in analytic number theory was titled Explicit Estimates for Functions of Primes in Arithmetic Progressions, and his advisor was Paul Trevier Bateman.

After he was a post-doc at Michigan State University, McCurley took a job at USC (Los Angeles), where he published some papers with Leonard Adleman about algorithms and complexity.

A former president of the International Association for Cryptologic Research, McCurley was selected as an IACR Fellow in 2005 for his "exemplary service as IACR President and essential leadership in IACR information systems".

From 2005 to at least 2009 McCurley was a research scientist at Google Research.

Bets about P vs NP McCurley has made three bets with Ron Fagin about the outcome of the P versus NP problem. In each bet, the outcome P = NP would require Fagin to pay McCurley $50, whereas P != NP would require McCurley to pay Fagin $10. The first bet had a deadline of 31 December 2010, the second a deadline of 31 December 2020, and the third (made in 2021) a deadline of 31 December 2030.