In Memory of Doug Tygar

I was privileged to take three courses from Doug at Cal. He was an engaging professor who clearly loved to teach and learn. It was inspiring to see someone at the top of his field still be so delighted by the comparatively small successes of his students. He was always thoughtful and interested during my personal interactions with him as well.

I'll never forget how Doug demonstrated the one-way nature of hashing algorithms by dumping his can of Diet Coke onto the carpeted floor... very easy to dump out the Coke, but very difficult to get it back into the can.

You will be missed, good sir.

I am extremely saddened to learn of Doug’s death. I extend my sincere condolences to his family, friends, and to the faculty and students who knew him.

Doug was my PhD advisor at CMU in the late 1980’s. But he wasn’t my initial advisor because he joined the faculty a year or two after I started the PhD program. At the end of my second year, my initial advisor announced he was leaving CMU, and to my great good fortune Doug became my advisor. Although Doug already had a couple of grad students, I was further along in the program than they were, so I became Doug’s first PhD student to graduate.

Two things struck me immediately about Doug: his youth and his brilliance. Doug was something of a child prodigy. Although he was only a year older than me, he had graduated from Berkeley at the age of 19 or 20, and he had just successfully earned his doctorate from Harvard under the direction of Michael Rabin, a Turing award winner.

It was also clear that Doug was incredibly smart, with a vast wealth of knowledge. He was an invaluable contributor to my research and to the writing of my thesis, which included this paragraph in its acknowledgements: “First and foremost, I want to thank my advisor, Doug Tygar, for his unflagging support, encouragement, and most of all, brain power. Whenever I got stuck, I could always count on Doug to get to the root of my problem and to propose a new approach or idea to help solve it. His breadth and depth of knowledge continually amaze me. He has read each part of this thesis several times, and his comments have improved it immensely on each iteration, especially in its organization and motivation. Doug has a real gift for making persuasive arguments; I only hope that a small portion of that talent has worn off on me during our many enjoyable meetings and discussions together.” I couldn’t say it any better today.

Ours was mostly an advisor/advisee relationship. We didn’t socialize outside of school, but I did occasionally learn bits about his personal life during our meetings together. Doug had interests in literature, art, and especially music. I had the impression that his CD collection at the time was so vast it may have rivaled those of most Pittsburgh radio stations. He was also teaching himself Japanese. I remember him telling me about how on a trip to Japan he had traveled into smaller towns where people were shocked not only to encounter a non-native, but someone speaking their language so well. He was certainly a person of many interests and talents. I will forever be indebted to Doug for his guidance, his mentorship, and the positive role he played in my life.

Doug Tygar was, as many others have noted in these pages, sui generis. His unique way of thinking enabled him to go outside the box and create new research areas out of nothing. He was also exceptionally generous with his time - always ready to engage in conversation whenever someone had a need to tap into his encyclopedic base of knowledge. (He happily devoted hours to helping my wife's company understand security issues in payment systems, for example.) He was also a fierce defender of students, particularly of those who found themselves struggling in a sometimes unfriendly and competitive environment. It was very hard to hear the news of his passing.

Doug is one of those people who make an indelible impression, even in the briefest meeting. He was my PhD advisor for 5 years, so had plenty of time to make an impression on me. His incredible ability to weave a narrative arc served him and his students well. After graduating, I ran into Doug at a conference -- he was wearing a familiar Kangol hat and used 'grep' and 'pick' to find an email that he wanted to share with me. I lost touch with him for about a decade, then suddenly he showed up at an album release party (my debut recording after becoming a full-time musician), geeky as ever. Doug could have been a music critic, a movie reviewer, a philosopher, a professor in any number of fields. Most of all he was a perpetual student in all things that made his world more interesting. I am glad to have known him.