CENTER FOR INFORMATION AND COMPUTATION SECURITY (CICS)
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About the Center: The CICS is the inter-disciplinary center founded in the fall of 2003 at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science to promote all aspects of research and education in cryptography and computer security.

Director: Prof. Rafail Ostrovsky
Associate Director: Prof. Amit Sahai

EngSeal
Ph.D. Students; Postdoctoral Scholars and Visitors Alumni
Ph.D. Students
  • Akash Shah (CS)
  • Ankit Kumar Mishra (CS)
  • Wyatt Howe (CS)
  • Turan Vural (CS)
Postdoctoral Fellows
  • Varun Naranyan (postdoctoral researcher 2024-- present)
  • Wutichai Chongchitmate (postdoc 2016)
  • Silas Richelson (postdoc 2014 -- 2015; now CS faculty at U.C. Riversside)
  • Anat Paskin (postdoc 2012 -- 2015; now CS faculty at Ariel University, Israel)
  • Vassilis Zikas (postdoc 2012 -- 2015; now an assosiate professor of CS at Perdue U.)
  • Alessandra Scafuro (postdoc 2012 -- 2015; now assistant professor of CS and NC State University)
  • Bhavana Kanukurthi (postodc 2011 -- 2014; now a tenured faculty at Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Bangalore, India)
  • Jens Groth (2005-2007): Now honorary tenured faculty at University College of London and director of research at DFINITY.
Visitors
  • Prof. Vassilis Zikas (short term visits 2016 -- present)
  • Prof. Michele Ciampi (Decemmber 2015 -- present)
  • Prof. Juan Garay (short term visits 2010 -- present)
  • Prof. Ivan Vinsconti (short, medium and long term visits from 2009 to 2016 for a taotal of 3.5 years)
  • Prof. Yuval Ishai (subbaticals, short term visits, 2009 -- present)
  • Prof. Giuseppe (a.k.a. Pino) Persiano (several short term visits 2012--present)
  • Prof. Yuval Rabani (annual visits 2009 -- present)
  • Prof. Eyal Kushulevitz (subbatical, short term visits, 2003 -- presnet)
  • Dr. Serge Fehr (short term visit, 2011)
  • Claudio Orlandi (6-month visit from Aaharus, 2010)
Doctoral Students (listed by graduation year):
  • Eli Jaffe (CS Ph.D. 2024, researcher at Stealth Software Technologies, Inc.)
  • Kevin Garbe (CS Ph.D. 2023, researcher at Google)
  • Saikrishna Badrinarayanan (CS Ph.D. 2020, now researcher at LinkedIn.)
  • Arman Yousefi (CS Ph.D. 2018, now researcher at Google)
  • Dakshita Khurana (CS Ph.D. 2018, now tenure track faculty at UIUC CS Depatment)
  • Prabhanjan Ananth (CS Ph.D. 2017, now assistant professor at USCB CS Departmnet))
  • Will Rosenbaum (MATH Ph.D. 2016, now assitant professor at Amherst Colledge CS Departmnet)
  • Wutichai Chongchitmate (MATH Ph.D. 2016, (now tenure-track faculty at Mathematics Departmnet Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.)
  • David Felber (CS Ph.D. 2015, now researcher at Google.)
  • Alan Roytman (CS Ph.D. 2014, now postdoctoral researcher at Tel-Aviv University Computer Science)
  • Ran Gelles (CS Ph.D. 2014, now tenure-track faculty at Bar-Ilan University CS Departmnet.)
  • Silas Richelson (MATH Ph.D. 2014, now tenure-track faculty at UC Reiverside CS Departmnet.)
  • Akshay Wadia (CS Ph.D. 2014, now researcher at Silicon-Valley Startup)
  • Chongwon Cho (CS Ph.D. 2013, now researcher at Stealth Software Technologies, Inc.)
  • Sanjam Garg (CS Ph.D. 2012), now a assosiate professor at U.C. Berkely EECS.) (As my student, Sanjam won 2013 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award)
  • Cheng-Keui Lee (CS Ph.D. 2012, now Security Researcher, LinkedIn)
  • Abhishek Jain (CS Ph.D., 2012, now assosiate professor at Johns Hopkins University CS Departmnet.)
  • Hakan Seyalioglu (Math Ph.D., 2012, now researcher at Google.)
  • Joshua Baron (Math Ph.D., 2012, now DARPA Program Manager.)
  • Clint Givens (Math Ph.D., 2012, now tenure track Math faculty at University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma)
  • Vladimir Braverman (C.S. Ph.D. 2011, C.S. tenured faculty at Johns Hopkins University.)
  • Nishanth Chandran (C.S. Ph.D. 2011, now a researcher at MSR India)
  • Omkant Pandey (CS Ph.D., 2010, nowa tenure track faculty at Stony Brook Computer Sccience Department.)
  • Brett Hemenway (Math Ph.D., 2010, now a tenure-track research faculty at U. Penn.)
  • Paul Bunn (Math Ph.D., 2010, researcher at Google.)
  • Ryan Moriarty (CS Ph.D., 2010, entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Startups: apprats, flotate.)
  • Vipul Goyal (CS Ph.D., 2009, now a tenure-track associate professor at CMU.)
  • Steve Lu (Math Ph.D., 2009, researcher at Stealth Software Technologies, Inc.)
  • William Skeith (Math Ph.D., 2007; CS tenured associated professor at City College of NY).
  • Jonathan Katz (CS Ph.D. 2002, Full Professor of CS at U. of Marylandm, head of their cyber-security center.)
Faculty with interest in security and cryptography: Mission Statement:

The goal of the CICS center is to provide techniques and solutions for securing both national and private sector information infrastructures. We are interested in both long-term foundational work and short-term applied research to support the development of cryptographic foundations and critical security tools and techniques.

Our mission is to explore fault-tolerant solutions that are necessary to achieve two conflicting goals: making critical national cyber infrastructures more accessible, ubiquitous, and at the same time resilient against a wide range of both internal and external coordinated attacks, while simultaneously providing strong privacy and security guarantees to both individuals and organizations. The work of the center members ranges from developing cryptographic algorithms, definitions, and proofs of security to software and hardware implementations and deployment of new security mechanisms in real systems and applications.

Equally important, the center members explore the interplay of cryptography and security with other fields, including machine learning, AI, algorithms, complexity theory, networks, communication complexity, compiler and language design, operating systems, hardware design, and distributed computing.