PhD Student in Electrical Engineering with a Focus on Applied Cryptography

Lunds Universitet · Full-time

Box 118, Lund, Sweden

Lund University was founded in 1666 and is consistently ranked among the world's leading universities. We have approximately 46,000 students and 8,500 employees in Lund, Helsingborg, and Malmö. We are united in our commitment to understand, explain, and improve our world and people's conditions. Description of the Department The Division of Security and Network Systems at the Department of Electrical and Information Technology conducts broad research in cryptography, data security, wireless and fixed networks. The Security group within the division has approximately 20 members. The main research areas are cryptography, privacy, and system security for connected systems. The division runs several research projects through various major collaboration platforms and organizes extensive workshops and seminar series, which bring visibility to the division's research to a wider audience. Interdisciplinary projects are formed through our research collaboration platforms as well as national and international research networks, contributing to a dynamic research environment. Being a PhD Student As a PhD student, you are both enrolled as a student and employed at Lund University. As a research student, you are trained in a scientific approach. This can be briefly described as gaining practice in critical and analytical thinking, solving problems independently with appropriate methodological choices, and developing research ethics awareness. Additionally, as a PhD student, you have the opportunity to work with projects, develop your leadership skills, and enhance your teaching abilities. Throughout your studies, you are guided by a supervisor. Doctoral studies conclude with a dissertation and a doctoral degree. More about being a PhD student at LTH on lth.se. Subject and Project Description Through the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP), we are now offering a new PhD student position in the field of applied cryptography. WASP is Sweden's largest single research program to date, a significant national investment in strategically motivated basic research, education, and recruitment of researchers. The program addresses research on artificial intelligence and autonomous systems that interact with humans, adapt to their surroundings through sensors, information and knowledge, and form intelligent systems-of-systems. More about WASP on wasp-sweden.org. The main duties of the PhD position are to conduct research and teaching in applied cryptography. The research focuses on the broader area of privacy-preserving communication and outsourcing of computation. Communication over the internet is vulnerable to surveillance and censorship. Privacy-preserving communication techniques (e.g., Tor, Nym, Snowflake) enable users to circumvent such surveillance and censorship. The research area includes designing, analyzing, and implementing such systems; moreover, studies of various attacks and countermeasures are expected to be part of the research methodology. Privacy-preserving outsourcing of computation enables users to delegate computational tasks to a cloud server without the server gaining knowledge of user data or even the type of computations being performed. There are various techniques for such privacy-preserving computation outsourcing, such as Trusted Execution Environment (e.g., Intel SGX) and fully homomorphic encryption (TFHE, BGV). Furthermore, specific functions/tasks may be subject to attacks, and identifying attacks and countermeasures are expected to be part of the research. The research methodology will be a combination of systems studies, design, and experimental research. Duties You will primarily focus on your research education, which includes participation in research projects as well as doctoral courses, seminars, and conferences. Your duties include: Research in applied cryptography. Participation in research projects. Completing doctoral courses. Your duties also include participation in teaching and other departmental work (however, no more than 20% of your working time). Qualifications To be admitted and employed as a PhD student, you must meet the requirements below. Eligibility Requirements You meet the general eligibility requirements for doctoral level education if you have: completed a degree at advanced level, or completed course requirements of at least 240 higher education credits, of which at least 60 higher education credits at advanced level, or acquired equivalent knowledge in some other way. You meet the specific eligibility requirements for electrical engineering if you have: at least 60 higher education credits at advanced level relevant to the subject area, or a degree of Master of Science in Engineering in computer science, electrical engineering, information and communication technology, medicine and technology, engineering physics, engineering mathematics, or engineering nanoscience. For the complete announcement, please see https://lu.varbi.com/what:job/jobID:968020/.