Andreea B. Alexandru

I am a Cryptography Scientist at Duality Technologies.

Previously, I was a postdoctoral associate at the University of Maryland, College Park, within the Department of Computer Science, working with Jonathan Katz. My research focused on (i) privacy-preserving strategies for data processing with applications in cyber-physical systems, (ii) multi-party computation and distributed cryptographic protocols under various threat models and network assumptions.

Education

I obtained my PhD in Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in May 2021 under the supervision of professor George J. Pappas (UPenn). In my first year, I was also co-advised by professor Ali Jadbabaie (MIT). My thesis committee members were Manfred Morari (ETHZ and UPenn), Tal Rabin (Algorand and UPenn), and Sebastian Angel (UPenn).

I have received my B.Eng. in Systems Engineering from University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania, in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, where I was valedictorian.

News

Sep 2023. Great NIST Workshop on Multi-party Threshold Schemes! I gave a talk on steps towards standardizing Threshold FHE.

Jul 2023. I am happy to announce that our article "Collaborative Privacy-Preserving Analysis of Oncological Data using Multiparty Homomorphic Encryption" has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)!

Jul 2023. Our sixth edition of the invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization was accepted at CDC 2023!

Jun 2023. New version of the fully homomorphic encryption open-source library OpenFHE where my contribution for scheme switching between CKKS and FHEW has been included.

Dec 2022. Busy but productive week! On Monday Dec 5th, I gave a presentation titled "Opportunities and Challenges of using Cryptography for CPS Security" at the Workshop on CPS Security. Later that day, Erica Blum presented our paper "State Machine Replication under Changing Network Conditions" at Asiacrypt 2022. On Friday Dec 9th, I co-chaired the invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization at CDC 2022 and presented our paper "Private Anomaly Detection in Linear Controllers: Garbled Circuits vs. Homomorphic Encryption".

Nov 2022. I am thankful to received the MC2 inaugural travel grant!

Oct 2022. Check out our new preprint Sublinear-round Broadcast without trusted setup against dishonest majority!

Aug 2022. Our paper "State Machine Replication under Changing Network Conditions" was accepted at Asiacrypt 2022, to be held in Taipei, Taiwan.

Aug 2022. I attended my first in person CRYPTO conference.

Jul 2022. Our paper "Private Anomaly Detection in Linear Controllers: Garbled Circuits vs. Homomorphic Encryption" was accepted at the 61st Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2022, to be held in Cancun, Mexico. Our fifth edition of the invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization was also accepted!

June 2022. I am happy to receive the 2021 Charles Hallac and Sarah Keil Wolf Award for Best Dissertation!

May 2022. Check out our new preprint State Machine Replication under Changing Network Conditions!

Apr 2022. My profile appeared on the UMIACS website.

Feb 2022. We are organizing the fifth invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization at the 61th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2022 in Cancun, Mexico. If interested to contribute papers, contact myself or Moritz Schulze Darup (moritz.schulzedarup@tu-dortmund.de) or Junsoo Kim (junsoo@kth.se).

Dec 2021. I participated in the virtual 60th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2021, where we held the fourth invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization. I presented our paper titled "Encrypted Distributed Lasso for Sparse Data Predictive Control".

Nov 2021. Giorgos Zirdelis and I are reviving the DC area crypto day on November 5th, at the University of Maryland, College Park. More details at https://dcareacryptoday.wordpress.com/. Join us!

Aug, Oct 2021. I attended the virtual CRYPTO 2021 and hybrid EUROCRYPT 2021 and enjoyed the crypto puzzles.

Jul 2021. Our paper "Encrypted Distributed Lasso for Sparse Data Predictive Control" was accepted at the 60th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2021, to be held virtually.

Jul 2021. Our two proposed invited sessions on Encrypted Control and Optimization were accepted at the 60th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2021, to be held virtually.

Jun 2021. Our paper "Private Weighted Sum Aggregation" was accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems.

Apr 2021. I successfully defended my dissertation entitled "Cryptographic Foundations for Control and Optimization: Making Cloud-based and Networked Decisions on Encrypted Data"!

Feb 2021. We are organizing the fourth invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization at the 60th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2021 in Austin, Texas. If interested to contribute papers, contact myself or Moritz Schulze Darup (moritz.schulzedarup@tu-dortmund.de) or Junsoo Kim (kjs9044@snu.ac.kr).

Dec 2020. I participated in the virtual 59th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2020, where we held the third invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization. I presented our paper titled "Towards Private Data-driven Control".

Oct 2020. Check out our new preprint Private Weighted Sum Aggregation!

Oct 2020. I attended the virtual Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security GameSec 2020.

Sep 2020. I have presented my research proposal.

Aug 2020. Check out our new preprint Data-driven control on encrypted data!

Jul 2020. Our paper "Towards Private Data-driven Control" was accepted at the 59th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2020, to be held virtually.

Jul 2020. Our proposed invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization was accepted at the 59th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2020, to be held virtually.

11-17 Jul 2020. I participated in the first virtual 1st Virtual IFAC World Congress (IFAC-V 2020). Check out our paper "Private Weighted Sum Aggregation for Distributed Control Systems"!

10 June 2020. #shutdownstem Get involved.

May 2020. I attended the virtual IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy.

Apr 2020. I virtually attended the last workshop of the Lattices: Algorithms, Complexity, and Cryptography program, Lattices: From Theory to Practice, held at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing all over the world.

Mar 2020. I virtually attended the fourth workshop of the Lattices: Algorithms, Complexity, and Cryptography program, Lattices: New Cryptographic Capabilities, at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing all over the world.

Feb 2020. Our paper "Private Weighted Sum Aggregation for Distributed Control Systems" was accepted for publication at the 21st IFAC World Congress IFAC WC 2020 to be held in Berlin, Germany.

Feb 2020. We are organizing the third invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization at the 59th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2020 in Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. If interested to contribute papers, contact myself or Moritz Schulze Darup (moritz dot schulze dot darup at upb dot de) or Hyungbo Shim (hshim at snu dot ac dot kr).

Jan 2020. I attended the first workshop of the Lattices: Algorithms, Complexity, and Cryptography program, Lattices: Algorithms, Complexity, and Cryptography Boot Camp, held at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

Dec 2019. I participated in the 58th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2019 in Nice, France, where we held the second invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization. I presented our paper titled "Encrypted Cooperative Control Revisited".

Nov 2019. The book "Privacy in Dynamical Systems" has been published! You can find our chapter "Secure Multi-party Computation for Cloud-Based Control" there.

Nov 2019. I participated in the Rising Stars in EECS workshop, held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL. I presented a poster on my work, titled "Privacy for Cyber-Physical Systems".

Oct 2019. I attended the Grace Hopper Celebration that took place in Orlando, FL. I participated in the ACM Student Research Competition, where I presented a poster titled "Private Cooperative Control".

Sep 2019 . Happy birthday, GRASP lab! GRASP Impact & Innovation: Celebrating 40 Years .

Jul 2019. I was selected to participate in the Rising Stars in EECS workshop, to be held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL.

Jul 2019. Our paper "Encrypted Cooperative Control Revisited" and our proposed invited session "Encrypted Control and Optimization" were accepted at the 58th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2019 in Nice, France!

Jul 2019. I participated in the American Control Conference ACC 2019 in Philadelphia, PA. Anastasios Tsiamis presented our paper called "Motion Planning with Secrecy".

May-Aug 2019. I was an intern at Duality Technologies in the Cryptography team.

Apr 2019. I attended the Cyber-Physical Systems Week CPS Week 2019 in Montreal, QC, Canada. I presented our paper called "Encrypted LQG using Labeled Homomorphic Encryption". Our paper is a finalist for the best paper award in the ICCPS conference!

Mar 2019. I participated in the NSF iREDEFINE workshop held at the ECEDHA Annual Conference and ECExpo in Tucson, Arizona. I presented a poster on my work, titled "Privacy for Cyber-Physical Systems".

Feb 2019. We are organizing the second invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization at the 58th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2019 in Nice, France. If interested to contribute papers, contact myself or Moritz Schulze Darup (moritz dot schulze dot darup at upb dot de).

Jan 2019. Our paper "Motion planning with secrecy" has been accepted at the American Control Conference ACC 2019 to take place in Philadelphia, PA, and is a finalist for the best student paper award!

Dec 2018. Our paper "Encrypted LQG using Labeled Homomorphic Encryption" has been accepted at the International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems ICCPS 2019, part of the Cyber-Physical Systems Week CPS Week 2019, to take place in Montreal, QC, Canada.

Dec 2018. I participated in the 57th Conference on Decision and Control CDC 2018 in Miami, FL, where we held the first invited session on Encrypted Control and Optimization. I presented our paper titled "Cloud-based MPC with Encrypted Data".