Zahra Jafargholi
PhD Student
Biography
Zahra Jafargholi is a PhD candidate in the Computer Science program at Northeastern University's College of Computer and Information Science, advised by Professor Daniel Wichs. Before coming to Northeastern, Zahra earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Shahid Beheshti University in Iran. Zahra’s published contributions discuss topics such as cryptography and algorithms, and she is interested in researching and solving cryptography problems to improve system security.
Education
- BS in Computer Science, Shahid Beheshti University - Iran
About Zahra
- Hometown: Tehran, Iran
- Field of Study: Computer Science
- PhD Advisor: Daniel Wichs
What are the specifics of your graduate education (thus far)?
I study cryptography.
What are your research interests?
I first started liking algorithms in high school which got me into studying computer science in college. In college I got more interested in the complexity of algorithms and different classes of problems and I also took a cryptography course. I found it amazing how problems that are hard to solve can be used to create systems with proven security properties. I started my PhD with both complexity and cryptography in mind. Now I'm mostly focused on cryptography problems.
What’s one problem you’d like to solve with your research/work?
These days I'm working on proving adaptive security of Yao's garbled circuits.
What do you find most interesting?
One thing that comes as a surprise to most people is how much time we cryptographers spend on defining what security is! At first glance, one might hope for a security definition that fits all systems, but in fact it's not possible. Sometimes a feature that makes one system useful, makes another (or the same) system vulnerable
What are your research / career goals, going forward?
I like to research and solve problems. I don't have a more specific answer yet. I'll have to see where the next problem takes me.