Saba Eskandarian

Saba Eskandarian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill within the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on applied cryptography, security, and privacy with emphasis on metadata-hiding communication systems and secure messaging protocols.

Her research interests span applied cryptography, security, and privacy, with particular expertise in metadata-hiding communication, secure messaging protocols, cryptographic privacy techniques, payment system security, and side-channel attack mitigation. Her work bridges theoretical cryptographic primitives with practical system implementations.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a strong trend toward practical privacy-enhancing technologies for real-world systems. Her research consistently addresses the tension between privacy guarantees and system functionality, particularly in communication systems and payment networks. She has made significant contributions to abuse reporting mechanisms in private messaging and compression side-channel vulnerabilities.

• Runner-up for Andreas Pfitzmann Best Student Paper Award (PETS 2021)

As an advisor, she currently mentors Matthew Gregoire and has previously advised Maggie Pierce (MS 2022-24), Britney Bourassa (MS 2022-24), and Connor Bell (MS 2021-23). She serves on numerous prestigious program committees including IEEE S&P 2025, Eurocrypt 2025, PETS 2025, and ACM CCS 2023, while also providing external reviews for top security conferences.