Hi, I am Mayank Varia.

I research theoretical and applied cryptography and its application to problems throughout and beyond computer science.

About Me

Research Associate Professor

I am a computer science faculty member at Boston University. I have taught courses in Applied Crypto (spring 20, 19, 18, 17, 16) and MPC at Scale (fall 17 and 16).

Public Service

I am a member of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building. Additionally, I chair the legal subtask group of the United Nations Privacy Preserving Techniques Task Team.

Professional Service

I have served as the general chair of CSF 20, finance chair of SSS 17, and program commitee member of CCS 21, Usenix Security 21, Oakland 20, ICDCS 20, CSF 18, and CANS 17.

Centers & Initiatives

I am co-director of BU's Center for Reliable Information Systems & Cyber Security, a founding member of the Cyber Security, Law, and Society Alliance, a fellow in the Institute for Health System Innovation & Policy, and a faculty mentor of the Codebreakers outreach program.

Grant Awards

I am grateful for the support of the DARPA SIEVE program (Agreement HR00112020021), the National Science Foundation (Grants 1414119, 1718135, 1739000, 1801564, 1915763, 1931714, and 1955579), and the industry partners in BU's Data Privacy Collaborative.

Publications

You can find a full list of my papers at DBLP.

Below, I describe some major themes of my research along with links to selected publications.

Secure Computation

I develop cryptographic algorithms and systems that improve the accessibility and scalability of secure multi-party computation. Selected publications: FPL 20 and EuroSys 19.

Private database search

I research cryptographic techniques to perform database searches that protect the raw data and queries. Selected publications: Oakland 17 and OSR 15.

Legal Impacts of Crypto

I examine the social impact of cryptography and the design of cryptosystems that achieve certain legal guarantees. Selected publications: Usenix Security 21, Euro S&P 18, and FOCI 18.

Real-World Cryptography

I design new cryptographic building blocks with fast performance and strong security guarantees. Selected publications: FC 17, PKC 17, and CANS 16.

Formal Analysis of Systems

I construct formal, composable proofs of security for cryptographic protocols and broader systems. Selected publications: CSF 19, SecDev 19, CSF 17a, and CSF 17b.

Program Obfuscation

My PhD thesis provides concrete methods to “obfuscate” or garble computer programs in a provably secure manner while preserving their functionality. Selected publications: TCC 10a, TCC 10b, and TCC 09.

Privacy & Inference

I develop information theoric bounds on data reconstruction attacks, and characterize the tradeoffs between privacy and utility. Selected publications: Trans Inf. Theory 19 and Allerton 13.

Contact Me

You can send me a message on Twitter using the link below.