Dr. Ralph Merkle received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1979 where he co-invented public key cryptography. He joined Xerox PARC in 1988, pursuing research in computational nanotechnology until 1999.

He has been a Principal Fellow at Zyvex since 1999, where he continues his nanotechnology research.

He chaired the Fourth and Fifth Foresight Conferences on Nanotechnology, is on the Executive Editorial Boards of the journal Nanotechnology, was co-recipient of the 1998 Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology Theory, and was co-recipient of the ACM's Kanellakis Award for Theory and Practice, and the 2000 RSA Award in Mathematics.

Dr. Merkle has eight patents and has published and lectured extensively. He is a Director of Alcor, and Advisor to the Foresight Institute and Molecular Manufacturing Enterprises, Inc.