CV

Education

• Ph.D in Computer Scinenc, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, 2021
• M.S. in Communications - Coding, Sharif University of Tech., Tehran, Iran , 2011
• B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Shahid Beheshti university, Tehran, Iran 2008

Research and Work experience

• Spring 2023 - Present:
  • Postdoctoral Researcher at the Vector Institute
  • Overview: At Vector, I work on privacy preserving maching learning for applications in various industry sectors
• Fall 2021 - Present (on leave since May 2023):
  • Senior cryptography consultant at RBC (Royal Bank of Canada)
  • Overview: At RBC, I lead preparation for post-quantum cryptography migration, consulted with technology groups and conducted research to identify options that meet their security requirements, and developed cryptographic architectural patterns and standards in the organization.
• Fall 2020:
  • Research Intern, National Research Council (Canada)
  • Supervisor: Koray Karabina
  • Overview: I am working on designing a secure mechanism to perform join operation over encrypted data. Our work enables the data owner to outsource performing operations on his/her data while keeping the data private.
• Summer 2020:
  • Research Intern, Microsoft Research (US)
  • Supervisor: Robert Sim (Supervisor), Janardhan Kulkarni (Research mentor)
  • Overview: Machine learned models trained on organizational communication data, such as emails in an enterprise, carry unique risks of breaching confidentiality. My project at MSR shows how confidentiality relates to privacy in an enterprise context, and designs a model to preserve confidentiality for correlated data while leveraging principles from differential privacy.
• 2018-2021:
  • Research and Teaching Assistant, University of Waterloo, Canada
  • Supervisor: Florian Kerschbaum
  • Overview: I conducted several projects during my PhD program focusing on security and privacy in data management and machine learning, namely on: i) differential privacy, ii) multi-party computation, and iii) watermarking in neural networks.
• 2015-2017:
  • Research and Teaching Assistant, University of Calgary, Canada
  • Overview: I worked on post-quantum digital signatures. In particular, I introduced a scalable hash-based scheme for group signature that distributes the signature opening privilege among multiple authorities, removing the need for a central power.
• 2012-2014:
  • Manager of Cryptography Lab, Research Center of Informatic Industries (RCII), Tehran, Iran
  • Overview: I was in charge of designing tests for cryptographic algorithms and modules in collaboration with the Public Key Infrastructure group in RCII. I also was in charge of establishing and providing a road map for the Cryptography Lab for which purpose I lead research on Side Channel Analysis on smart cards.
• 2009-2011:
  • Research and Teaching Assistant, Sharif University of Technology, Iran
  • Supervisor: MohammadReza Aref
  • Overview: During my Master’s program, I introduced a new key distribution scheme in wireless sensor networks using combinatorial designs.