Kurt Rohloff

Prof. Kurt Rohloff is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). He serves as the founding director of the NJIT Cybersecurity Research Center, focusing on advanced cryptographic techniques such as homomorphic encryption, lattice-based cryptography, and secure computing. With a background in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan (Ph.D., 2004) and Georgia Tech (B.E., 1999), his career includes prior roles as a DARPA Program Investigator in industry before joining academia.

His research emphasizes practical implementations of privacy-preserving technologies, including open-source libraries like PALISADE and OpenFHE, which enable secure computation on encrypted data. Key areas of contribution include FPGA-accelerated homomorphic encryption, proxy re-encryption systems, and applications in healthcare, telecommunications, and distributed computing. He has led workshops such as WAHC (Workshop on Encrypted Computing and Applied Homomorphic Cryptography), fostering interdisciplinary collaboration.

Rohloff’s work bridges theoretical cryptography with real-world challenges, addressing scalability, performance optimization, and usability of secure computing frameworks. His innovations target use cases like encrypted genome analysis, privacy-preserving AI, and secure data sharing across distributed networks.