Waterloo Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute, University of Waterloo
How do you protect your data while still using it? Florian Kerschbaum’s research develops methods to protect data, yet still allow it to be processed efficiently. For example, when you store your data in a database in the cloud, you want it encrypted, but also searchable, able to do joins, or aggregable over groups. Florian Kerschbaum’s research enabled these and other applications that process data in encrypted form.
His contributions range from encryption schemes enabling such complex queries on encrypted data, over foundational techniques for optimized compilation of secure computation, to applications such as privacy in the smart grid. His research has been applied in products that ship worldwide. He has consistently published in leading academic venues and his students have won international awards such as the ACM SIGSAC dissertation award.
For his achievements he was designated as the NSERC/RBC chair in data security, was recognized an ACM Distinguished Scientist, and serves as the inaugural Director of the Waterloo Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute.