Dr. Masayuki Abe graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering at Tokyo University of Science in 1990, completed his graduate studies in Electrical Engineering at the same university in 1992, and joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (now NTT) in April of the same year. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Tokyo in 2002 and spent one year, starting in 1996, conducting research as a visiting researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Since 2003, he has served as a distinguished researcher at NTT Information Sharing Platform Laboratories, the predecessor to his current organization. Subsequently, he served as the leader of the Security Foundations Research Group and was a senior distinguished researcher at NTT Secure Platform Laboratories. Since 2022, he has been the head of the Abe Special Research Laboratory and the NTT Fellow at NTT Social Information Research Laboratories. In addition, with regard to educational activities, he made significant contributions to student teaching as a Visiting Associate Professor in the Graduate School at Kyoto University in 2013 and as a Visiting Professor at the same graduate school in 2018.

He has been engaged in research on cryptology for more than 30 years and has established himself as a world-renowned cryptographer as a board member of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), an authority in the field of cryptology research. He has also contributed to the widespread development of domestic cryptography. In particular, he has significantly contributed to improving the functionality and efficiency of digital signature technology, which supports the security of the information society. He has substantially contributed to the practical application of "blind signatures" and "ring signatures," which have privacy protection functions. This was the first time that a "partial blind signature" had been introduced that makes a document unalterable while concealing part of it. It has since been adopted as the standard for various blind signatures. Ring signatures can anonymize signers and have produced research results that contribute to the real world, such as protecting the privacy of transactions in early virtual currencies. In addition, the "structure preserving cryptosystem" that he pioneered is a design framework that enables the interconnection of multiple cryptographic technologies for easy and secure development and has had a significant impact not only in academia but also internationally because of its potential to create a wide variety of secure cryptographic applications. In this way, he has produced research achievements that are not only academic but also highly valuable in practical terms.

He has received numerous academic awards for his achievements, including the title of IEICE Senior Member, the Achievement Award of the IEICE, the Ichimura Prize in Science for Excellent Achievement, the Hisoka Maejima Award of the Tsushinbunka Association, and the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. He has also served as a board member of the International Association for Cryptology, a member of the CRYPTREC Cryptographic Technology Review Committee, a Japanese representative member of the Asiacrypt Steering Committee, and an affiliate member of the Science Council of Japan. He continues to lead cryptology research in Japan.

As mentioned above, his contributions to the field of electronics and telecommunications have been outstanding, and we are confident that he is a worthy recipient of the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award of the IEICE.