Lucas Vincenzo Davi

Lucas Vincenzo Davi is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Director of the paluno - the Ruhr Institute for Software Technology. He leads the SYSSEC research group and is a Principal Investigator (PI) in the SFB CROSSING and CASA excellence cluster. His work focuses on practical software and systems security, including memory corruption vulnerabilities, exploit mitigation, and blockchain smart contract security. Davi holds an ERC Starting Grant for Smart Contract Security research.

Education:

• PhD in IT Security, TU Darmstadt (2011–2015), Dissertation: "Code-Reuse Attacks and Defenses"
• Master of Science in IT Security, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (2007–2009)
• Diplom (FH) in Business Informatics, FOM Neuss (2003–2007)

Research: Davi's work emphasizes real-world security challenges like runtime attacks, trusted execution environments (TEE), and secure embedded systems. His contributions include Wemby (WebAssembly security analysis), HCC (smart contract hardening), and rowhammer mitigations like CATT. His research has influenced industry practices, e.g., Microsoft EMET v5.1 improvements.

Awards:

• Best Teacher Award (2025)
• Finalist German IT Security Prize (2022, 2020)
• ACM SIGSAC Dissertation Award (2016)
• CAST Förderpreis (2010)

Grants & Leadership: ERC Starting Grant (Smart Contracts), SFB CROSSING PI, CASA Cluster PI, and leadership in interdisciplinary initiatives like Nano Security (DFG Priority Program).

Labs/Teams: Director of paluno, SYSSEC group leader, and collaborator in projects like HERA (hotpatching for embedded systems) and DMA’n’Play (DMA-based attestation).