in mathematics with a computer science minor from the University of California, Berkeley, summa cum laude, in 1996.

[5] At Berkeley, Sahai was named Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate of the Year, North America, and was a member of the three-person team that won first place in the 1996 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

Amit Sahai's research interests are in security and cryptography, and theoretical computer science more broadly.

[18] In 2019, he was named a Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research for "fundamental contributions, including to secure computation, zero knowledge, and functional encryption, and for service to the IACR.

[21] In 2022, he received the Michael and Shelia Held Prize from the National Academy of Sciences for “outstanding, innovative, creative, and influential research in the areas of combinatorial and discrete optimization, or related parts of computer science, such as the design and analysis of algorithms and complexity theory.”[22] In 2023, he received the Test of Time Award from the International Association for Cryptologic Research for his 2008 paper "Efficient Non-interactive Proof Systems for Bilinear Groups".