Speaker: Chenkai Weng

Date: Mar 4, 11:45am–12:45pm

Abstract: With the advancement of digital globalization and the enhancement of privacy regulations, a conflict between centralized computing and distributed information is emerging. It becomes increasingly important to verify or compute distributed information while protecting privacy and integrity. In this talk, I will first introduce my research that advances the practicality of cryptographic tools crucial to achieving the above goal, including zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and secure multi-party computation (MPC). My presentation focuses on the design of efficient and scalable protocols for ZKP and MPC with the goal of pushing them toward production-ready systems. In the second part of my talk, I will show privacy-enhancing systems and applications I developed using cryptographic building blocks and explain how they solve real-world privacy dilemmas that appear in various research fields and industries. Examples include healthcare data sharing, business-related data collaboration, blockchain, and machine learning.

Biographical Sketch: Chenkai Weng is a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University, where he is advised by Professor Xiao Wang. His research focuses on theoretical and applied cryptography, cryptographic engineering, and the design and real-world deployment of privacy-enhancing techniques. He is a recipient of the JPMorgan Ph.D. fellowship and a runner-up for the CCS Best Paper award.

Location and Zoom link: 307 Love, or https://fsu.zoom.us/j/99507356390