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Administrative data

Alessandro Chiesa

alessandro.chiesa@epfl.ch +41 21 693 90 98

EPFL IC IINFCOM COMPSEC
BC 245 (Bâtiment BC)Station 141015 Lausanne

Expertise

Cryptography, Complexity Theory, Computer Security
Alessandro Chiesa is a faculty member in computer science. He conducts research in complexity theory, cryptography, and security, with a focus on the theoretical foundations and practical implementations of cryptographic proofs that are short and easy to verify. He is a co-author of several zkSNARK libraries, and is a co-inventor of the Zerocash protocol. He has co-founded Zcash and StarkWare Industries. He is a recipient of an IEEE SP Test-of-Time Award (2024), Sloan Research Fellowship (2021), an Okawa Foundation Research Grant (2020), and Google Faculty Research Awards (2018 and 2017). He was included in MIT Technology Review's "35 Innovators Under 35" list in 2018.

Education

Ph.D.

| Computer Science

2014 – 2014 MIT

M.Eng.

| Computer Science

2010 – 2010 MIT

S.B.

| Computer Science

2009 – 2009 MIT

S.B.

| Mathematics

2009 – 2009 MIT

Teaching & PhD

PhD Students

Zihan Hu, Zijing Di, Burcu Yildiz, Ziyi Guan, Guy Weissenberg, Giacomo Fenzi, Christian Knabenhans, Yuxi Zheng, Ignacio Manzur

Courses

Algorithms I

CS-250

The students learn the theory and practice of basic concepts and techniques in algorithms. The course covers mathematical induction, techniques for analyzing algorithms, elementary data structures, major algorithmic paradigms such as dynamic programming, sorting and searching, and graph algorithms.

Foundations of probabilistic proofs

CS-459

Probabilistic proof systems (eg PCPs and IPs) have had a tremendous impact on theoretical computer science, as well as on real-world secure systems. They underlie delegation of computation protocols and hardness of approximation. This course covers the foundations of probabilistic proof systems.

Lattice-based Cryptography

CS-800

This course provides a comprehensive overview of lattice-based cryptography, ranging from hash functions, signatures, proof systems, public-key encryption all the way to fully homomorphic encryption and obfuscation, with a theoretical overview together with concrete considerations.

Foundations of Probabilistic Proofs

The discovery and study of probabilistic proof systems, such as PCPs and IPs, have had a tremendous impact on theoretical computer science. These proof systems have numerous applications (e.g., to hardness of approximation) but one of their most compelling uses is a direct one: to construct cryptographic protocols that enable super fast verification of long computations. This course introduces students to the foundations of probabilistic proof systems, covering both classical results as well as modern efficient constructions. The playlist of video lectures is here and the syllabus is here.