Abstract

Professor Emeritus Hugh Williams was a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he held the prestigious Innovation iCORE Chair in Algorithmic Number Theory and Cryptography. Hugh graduated from the University of Waterloo with Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Mathematics and a PhD in Computer Science on the topic ‘A Generalization of the Lucas Functions’. He was awarded a Killam Research Fellowship by the Canada Council for the period 1983-85, ‘designed to provide support to scholars of exceptional ability who are engaged in research projects of broad significance and widespread interests’. In 1998, Wiley-Interscience in conjunction with the Canadian Mathematical Society published his book ‘Edouard Lucas and Primality Testing’. During his career, he has published many papers on applications of number theory to cryptography. On departing the University of Calgary, he worked for several years at the Canadian Communications Security Establishment, the Government of Canada-s national cryptologic agency.