Scott A. Vanstone was a mathematician and cryptographer in the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics.
He was a member of the school's Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, and was also a founder of the cybersecurity company Certicom.
[1]: 287 An early result of Vanstone (joint with Ian Blake, R. Fuji-Hara, and Ron Mullin) was an improved algorithm for computing discrete logarithms in binary fields,[2] which inspired Don Coppersmith to develop his famous exp(n^{1/3+ε}) algorithm (where n is the degree of the field).
[3] Vanstone was one of the first[1]: 289 to see the commercial potential of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), and much of his subsequent work was devoted to developing ECC algorithms, protocols, and standards.
Vanstone authored or coauthored five widely used books and almost two hundred research articles, and he held several patents.