Cryptography Group

Admissions are Open!

I am looking for highly motivated MS and PhD students. If you are interested, please apply here. Please see here for benefits of joining us!

Members of my research group are below. We are also part of the cybersecurity center CyStar at IIT Madras.

Current Members

• Rajeev Raghunath (Postdoc)
• Simran Kumari (PhD)
• Anuja Modi (PhD)
• Himakar Dasari (BTech Project)
• Nitin G (Ungergraduate Research Project)
• Prajwal M (Ungergraduate Research Project)

Past Members

PhD

• Monosij Maitra. Thesis: Fine Grained Encryption for Uniform models of Computation.
  Winner of IBM Best PhD Dissertation award.
• Anshu Yadav. Thesis: Building Cryptography for Distributed Data and Authority.

Masters with thesis

• Akhil Vanukuri
• Raghavendra Vernekar
• Rajarshi Biswas
• Vempati Narasimha Sai
• Rachit Garg
• Ishaan Preet Singh
• Goonwanth Reddy

Postdoc and Young International Faculty

• Young International Faculty : Fabrice Mouhartem.
• Postdoc: Meenakshi Kansal, Somindu Ramanna.

MTech and BTech

• MTech: Vankam Sree Hari.
• BTech: Nishant Kumar, Trivikrama Reddy, Yadugiri Saikumar.

Aside from our permanent members, we have an active stream of visitors. If you'd like to visit, please send me an email!

Joining us

We are actively expanding the cryptography group at IIT Madras and have positions available at every level. Some details are below. If you are interested in joining us, please write to me!

Faculty and Young International Faculty.

We are actively looking to expand the cryptography group at IIT Madras by hiring new faculty under the regular as well as the brand new Young International Faculty program, meant as a two-three year position for young researchers who have recently finished their Ph.D. and hold a non-Indian passport.

Postdoctoral Fellows.

I am looking for strong postdocs to join the group. I encourage you to apply for the IITM institute postdoctoral fellowship.

Ph.D./M.S.

I am looking for enthusiastic Ph.D. or M.S. students to work with me. Please apply here. Information about the selection process is here and tips on how to prepare for the interview are here. Shortlisting criteria are here.

Working with us: Opportunities

Students in our group have fantastic opportunities to collaborate with, and even obtain joint PhD degrees with leading researchers and institutes around the world. I have joint grants with the following amazing people, and students working with me can freely visit these institutes for extended durations for collaboration and exposure:

1. Swarnajayanti fellowship : Post Quantum Cryptography: Challenges, Opportunities and Beyond.


2. Indo-French grant: Computing on Encrypted Data with Dr. Benoit Libert and Prof. Damien Stehle.


3. Indo-Israel grant: Efficiency of Secure Computation with Prof. Yuval Ishai , Prof. Eyal Kushilevitz and Prof. Alon Rosen on the Israeli side and Prof. Manoj Prabhakaran and Prof. Vinod Prabhakaran on the Indian side.


4. National Blockchain Project with Prof. Manindra Agrawal and Prof. Sandeep Shukla.


5. Microsoft Virtual Centre in Cryptography with Dr. Satya Lokam and Dr. Nishanth Chandran .


6. Uchchatar Avishkar Yojana: Coherent one way quantum key distribution. Joint with Anil Prabhakar, Prabha Mandayam and Andrew Thangaraj.


7. Joint degree programs: IIT Madras has joint degree programs with these excellent universities around the world. If you'd like to work in lattice based cryptography, you can consider a joint Ph.D. with us and Prof. Divesh Aggarwal at the National University of Singapore.


8. The prime minister research fellowship offers a lucrative opportunity for graduate students pursuing research at IIT Madras! Here are more details.

Why you should join us in research

Science is the discovery of new ideas - what can be more fun than that? Cryptography is a young and vibrant branch of science, which effortlessly combines mathematical elegance, practical relevance and the coolness of solving puzzles. If you are a B.E/BTech/M.S student debating what to do next, I strongly urge you to consider joining our graduate program. To get a flavour of what research is and how it's done read this popular essay titled "You and your research" by Richard Hamming. I also recommend reading this delightful blog, titled "The Birth of an Idea", where scientists talking about the genesis of their ideas. Other useful articles are principles of effective research by Michael Nielsen and how to choose a good scientific problem by Uri Alon.

Ph.D. is hard work but also a lot of fun. Don't believe me? Read this! Also check out the Ph.D. storybook put together by my colleague Rijurekha. If you are considering working with me, you may enjoy reading this gentle introduction to post quantum cryptography and this magazine article that IIT did about some of my recent work.