Ciara Rafferty

Dr. Ciara Rafferty is a Senior Lecturer at Queen's University Belfast's School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, affiliated with the Centre for Secure Information Technologies. She leads research in advanced cryptography, focusing on post-quantum systems, homomorphic encryption, and hardware acceleration. Her work includes quantum-safe cryptography projects like the UK Quantum Communications Hub and AQuASeC (Innovate UK). She co-teaches CSC2056 - Systems Security and Cryptography and actively supervises PhD students. Dr. Rafferty is a Senior Member of IEEE and an EPSRC SPRITE+ Expert Fellow.

Research Interests:

• Homomorphic Encryption
• Post-Quantum Cryptography
• Cryptographic Hardware Architectures
• Privacy-Preserving Technologies
• Side-Channel Attack Mitigation

Key Projects:

• UK Quantum Communications Hub (Phase 2)
• SAFEcrypto (H2020 Project)
• AQuASeC (Toshiba Europe-funded)
• SEQURED (Rolls Royce-funded)

Awards:

• Senior Member of IEEE
• EPSRC SPRITE+ Expert Fellow

Advising & Grants:

• PhD Supervision: Shabnam K (Secure Cloud Computation)
• Funding: EPSRC, Innovate UK, Industry Partners

Lab/Teams: Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT), collaborating on hardware-accelerated cryptography and quantum-safe systems.