Oregon State University
I am a computer scientist interested in cryptography, and the only faculty member at Oregon State University whose name contains the substring “OSU”. All other boring achievements are listed in my CV.
Research
I am interested in cryptography generally, but most of my research is on secure multi-party computation (MPC), a technique for computing on private data. Using MPC, participants learn only the outcome of some agreed-upon computation and nothing else about the inputs. Under the broad umbrella of MPC, I have worked extensively on the following topics:
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Private set intersection is a special case of MPC, where the participants each hold a set of items and want to identify all common items, without revealing anything else.
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Garbled circuits are a fundamental technique for MPC of arbitrary functions. I’m interested in improvements to and applications of garbled circuits.
The Joy of Cryptography
I am author of The Joy of Cryptography, an undergraduate-level textbook introducing students to the fundamentals of provable security. The table of contents and preface can be found here.
Starting July 2026, the book will be available online in open access; currently the first 3 chapters are available. The online version is HTML-based, and contains interactive visualizations of all security proofs.
Much older (2021 and earlier) versions of the book were previously available in PDF form. The new (2026) version is a complete re-write of everything, with many more chapters, and is better in every conceivable way. I would be glad if the Internet forgets about those old versions.
Students
Current students:
- David Richardson (PhD, co-advised with Jiayu Xu)
- Alice Murphy (PhD)
- Junxin Liu (PhD)
- Aditya Damodhar Dhanapal (PhD, co-advised with Jiayu Xu)
Alumni:
- Perry Hooker (MS 2012) → Oracle
- Zhangxiang Hu (MS 2015) → PhD U Oregon
- Morgan Shirley (MS 2017) → PhD Toronto
- Peter Rindal (PhD 2018) → Visa Research
- Brent Carmer (PhD 2018) → Galois
- Naimisha Saireddy (MS 2019)
- Tommy Hollenberg (MS 2019)
- Ni Trieu (PhD 2019) → Berkeley postdoc → Arizona State faculty
- Lawrence Roy (PhD 2022) → Aarhus postdoc
- Gayathri Garimella (PhD 2023) → Brown postdoc
- Jaspal Singh (PhD 2023) → Purdue postdoc
- Ian McQuoid (PhD 2023) → MIT Lincoln Labs
- Jake Januzelli (MS 2025JX) → Columbia PhD program
- Naman Kumar (MS 2025JX) → CNRS/IRIF PhD program
Prospective students:
- My research group is at full capacity, so I am not seeking new grad students in the upcoming admissions cycle (i.e., for Fall 2026).
- Advice for new grad students (and their advisors).
Publications
Additional info can be found on my Google Scholar and DBLP pages.
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Crypto 2025 docs folder_code
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Crypto 2025 docs
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Crypto 2023 docs
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PETS 2023 docs
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TCC 2022 docs
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Crypto 2022 docs live_tv animated_images
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SCN 2022 docs
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USENIX Security 2022 docs animated_images folder_code
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CSF 2022 docs
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Asiacrypt 2021 docs
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CCS 2021 docs live_tv animated_images
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Crypto 2021 docs
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Crypto 2021 docs
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PKC 2021 docs
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PETS 2021 docs
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CCS 2020 docs
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CCS 2020 docs
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PETS 2020 docs
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Eurocrypt 2020 docs live_tv animated_images
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Asiacrypt 2019 docs
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TCC 2019 docs
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CCSW 2019 docs
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Crypto 2019 docs folder_code
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PETS 2019 docs
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NDSS 2019 docs
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TCC 2018 docs
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CCS 2018 docs
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Crypto 2018 docs
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PETS 2018 docs
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FC 2018 docs folder_code
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Indocrypt 2017 docs animated_images
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MPS Workshop 2017 docs
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CCS 2017 docs folder_code
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CCS 2017 docs folder_code
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CCS 2017 docs folder_code
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Eurocrypt 2017 docs folder_code
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Eurocrypt 2017 docs
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Eurocrypt 2017 docs
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J. Cryptology 2017 docs
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CCS 2016 docs folder_code
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CCS 2016 docs animated_images
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CRYPTO 2016 docs animated_images folder_code
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USENIX Security 2016 docs animated_images folder_code
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CCS 2015 docs
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CRYPTO 2015 docs
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Eurocrypt 2015 docs
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Eurocrypt 2015 docs animated_images
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FIE 205 docs folder_code
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TCC 2015 docs animated_images
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CRYPTO 2014 docs live_tv animated_images
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Eurocrypt 2013 docs
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TCC 2013 docs
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Indocrypt 2012 docs
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CRYPTO 2012 docs live_tv animated_images
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CRYPTO 2012 docs live_tv animated_images
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TCC 2011 docs
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CT-RSA 2011 docs
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CRYPTO 2010 docs
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ICS 2010 docs
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TCC 2009 docs
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Asiacrypt 2008 docs animated_images
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CRYPTO 2008 docs animated_images
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ICALP 2008 docs animated_images
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WPES 2007 docs
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CRYPTO 2007 docs animated_images
Preprints and other writings:
MPC Resources
Pragmatic MPC
I am co-author (with David Evans and Vladimir Kolesnikov) of Pragmatic MPC, published by NOW and available for free online.
Secure multi-party computation (MPC) has evolved from a theoretical curiosity in the 1980s to a tool for building real systems today. Over the past decade, MPC has been one of the most active research areas in both theoretical and applied cryptography. This book introduces several important MPC protocols, and surveys methods for improving the efficiency of privacy-preserving applications built using MPC. Besides giving a broad overview of the field and the insights of the main constructions, we overview the most currently active areas of MPC research and aim to give readers insights into what problems are practically solvable using MPC today and how different threat models and assumptions impact the practicality of different approaches.
2PC Course
In Summer 2018 I was an invited lecturer at the crypt@b-it summer school in Bonn, Germany, where I delivered a week-long course on efficient secure computation techniques. materials:
- Day 1: Overview of secure computation (applications and definitions) and textbook Yao’s protocol.
- Day 2: Optimizations to garbled circuits (point-permute, free-XOR, half-gates, arithmetic garbling).
- Day 3: Optimizations to oblivious transfer (Beaver precomputation, OT extension, IKNP protocol and variants).
- Day 4: Protecting Yao’s protocol from malicious attacks (cut-and-choose & its subtleties, cheating punishment, dual execution variants, batch cut-and-choose)
- Day 5: Private set intersection (classic DH protocol, OT-based equality tests, hashing techniques)
- Homework exercises for all days
Other introductory resources
- Bar-Ilan 2015 Cryptography Winter School on MPC: a Youtube playlist.
- A Brief History of Practical Garbled Circuit Optimizations, Simons workshop presentation by myself, 2015.
- The UC Framework video tutorial series by Ran Canetti.
- Resources for Getting Started with MPC from Yehuda Lindell.
Miscellany
- Vamonos: A web-based platform for algorithm visualizations.
- Life outside of CS: home photo_camera music_note code

