About
I am a fifth-year PhD student at CMU, advised by Aayush Jain and Riad Wahby. Before that, I got my MA in Math at the University of Michigan, where I worked with Paul Grubbs.
Research Interests: My research focuses on two complementary directions in succinct zero-knowledge proofs (SNARKs): efficient post-quantum constructions and their formal verification. For formal verification, I build modular, machine-checked foundations for cryptographic protocols in Lean (ArkLib, VCVio, PolyFun). For post-quantum SNARKs, I design lattice-based polynomial commitment schemes and proof systems, from foundational security arguments through efficient implementations. My earlier work explored other post-quantum primitives from code-based assumptions.
Projects:
- Akita — a high-performance lattice-based polynomial commitment scheme for post-quantum SNARKs, with an implementation integrated into Jolt.
- ArkLib — a Lean library for formally verified SNARKs; I founded and co-lead the project.
- Jolt — a state-of-the-art zero-knowledge virtual machine based on structured lookup arguments; I am a main contributor.
- PolyFun — a Lean library for polynomial functors and generic interaction frameworks; I founded and co-lead the project.
- VCVio — a Lean library for machine-checked cryptographic proofs; I am a co-lead developer.
My research is generously supported by the Quad Fellowship, the CyLab Presidential Fellowship, and funding from the Ethereum Foundation.
Preprints
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Counterexamples to Beyond-Johnson Proximity Gaps over Binary Fields
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
Jolt-QED: Formally Verifying Bytecode Expansions in Lean
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
Reed-Solomon Codes Beyond Johnson: Efficient Decoding and Smaller Cryptographic Proofs
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
Akita: A High-Performance Lattice-Based Polynomial Commitment Scheme
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
Weak Keys Break the BUFF Security of HAWK
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
Resettable Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge: Attacks and Defenses
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
VCVio: Verified Cryptography in Lean via Oracle Effects and Handlers
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
The Sum-Check Protocol over the Monomial Basis, and Other Optimizations
ePrint
ePrint 2026. -
Constraint-Packing and the Sum-Check Protocol over Binary Tower Fields
ePrint
ePrint 2024.
Publications
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Speeding Up Sum-Check Proving
ePrint
ACM CCS 2026. -
On the Simulation-Extractability of Proof-Carrying Data
ePrint
Proceedings
PKC 2026. -
Verifying Jolt zkVM Lookup Semantics
ePrint
Proceedings
Financial Cryptography 2025. -
Lossy Cryptography from Code-Based Assumptions
ePrint
Proceedings
Journal
CRYPTO 2024. Best Paper from Early Career Researchers! -
Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge from LPN and MQ
ePrint
Proceedings
CRYPTO 2024. -
Multi-party Homomorphic Secret Sharing and Sublinear MPC from Sparse LPN
ePrint
Proceedings
CRYPTO 2023. -
Weak Fiat-Shamir Attacks on Modern Proof Systems
ePrint
Proceedings
IEEE S&P 2023. Distinguished Paper Award! -
Spartan and Bulletproofs are simulation-extractable (for free!)
ePrint
Proceedings
EUROCRYPT 2023. -
Rowmotion Orbits of Trapezoid Posets
arXiv
Journal
The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (2022): P2-29.
Talks
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Akita: A High-Performance Lattice-Based Polynomial Commitment Scheme
NYU CryptoSec Seminar (Oct 2026), a16z Crypto Research Seminar (Aug 2026), Seoul National University (Jun 2026)
- Evolving the Foundations of ArkLib
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ArkLib: Compositional Verification of SNARKs
Real World Crypto (Mar 2026), Verified zk(E)VM Seminar (Jan 2026), King's College London (Oct 2025), University of Cambridge (Oct 2025), Ethereum's PQ Interop (Oct 2025), CMU PLunch (Sep 2025), University of Luxembourg Crypto Seminar (Jul 2025), CRYPTO Day, Telecom Paris (Jun 2025), EPFL Crypto Seminar (Jun 2025), CMU Formal Cookies (Oct 2024)
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Lossy Cryptography from Code-Based Assumptions
MIT CIS Seminar (Nov 2024), BUSec Seminar (Nov 2024), NYU Crypto Reading Group (Nov 2024), CMU CyLab Crypto Seminar (Sep 2024), UCLA Crypto Reading Group (Apr 2024), UToronto Theory Seminar (Mar 2024)
- Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge from LPN and MQ
- Advanced Security for SNARKs: A Survey
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Multi-party Homomorphic Secret Sharing and Sublinear MPC from Sparse LPN
JP Morgan AlgoCRYPT Seminar (Dec 2023), CMU Crypto Seminar (Nov 2023), NTT Research Seminar (Oct 2023), CyLab Partners Conference (Oct 2023), Vietnam Mathematical Congress (Aug 2023)
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Weak Fiat-Shamir Attacks on Modern Proof Systems
Real World Crypto (Mar 2024), CMU CyLab Security Seminar (Nov 2023), Cornell Security Seminar (Sep 2023), NYU Crypto Reading Group (Sep 2023), Workshop on Attacks in Cryptography (Aug 2023), IEEE S&P (May 2023)
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Spartan and Bulletproofs are simulation-extractable (for free!)
Stanford Crypto Reading Group (May 2023), Telecom Paris Seminar (May 2023), Lattices Meet Hashes Workshop, EPFL (May 2023), CMU Crypto Seminar (Apr 2023)
Service
- Program Committee: ASIACRYPT 2026
- External Reviewer: CRYPTO (2026); EUROCRYPT, IEEE S&P, CRYPTO, RANDOM, TCC (2025); STOC, EUROCRYPT, TCC (2024); ASIACRYPT, TCC, FOCS (2023); CRYPTO, EUROCRYPT (2022)
- Co-Organizer: CMU Crypto Seminar (2022-2025)
Mentorship
- Chung Nguyen, Post-baccalaureate, 2025 – Spring 2026
- James Waters, Undergraduate, Fall 2025 – Summer 2026
- Liam Schilling, Undergraduate, Spring & Fall 2025
- Ian Martin, Undergraduate, Summer 2025
- Jack Zhu, Undergraduate, Spring 2025
- Christian Ang, Undergraduate, Spring 2025
Miscellaneous
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Extended Nestohedra and their Face Numbers
arXiv
preprint - In Summer 2021 at Michigan, I taught a grad student minicourse on Schubert calculus.