Sebastian Faust

Professor Sebastian Faust is a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at Technical University of Darmstadt, where he heads the Applied Cryptography department. He has been at TU Darmstadt since 2017, holding a full professorship. His research focuses on applied cryptography with applications in blockchain security, side-channel resistance, and secure multi-party computation.

Professor Faust's educational background includes:

• Doctorate from KU Leuven, Belgium (2010)
• Postdoctoral fellowship at Aarhus University, Denmark
• Marie Curie IEF scholarship at EPFL, Switzerland
• Assistant professor position at Ruhr University Bochum

Professor Faust's research interests span multiple areas of cryptography and security. He specializes in developing practical cryptographic solutions that are resilient against real-world attacks, particularly side-channel attacks and implementation-level vulnerabilities. His work bridges theoretical cryptography with practical implementation concerns, focusing on making cryptographic systems secure against both passive observation and active fault injection. He has made significant contributions to masking schemes, threshold cryptography, and blockchain security protocols. His research often addresses the gap between theoretical security guarantees and practical implementation challenges.

Analysis of Professor Faust's recent publications (2023-2025) reveals a strong focus on practical cryptographic applications, particularly in blockchain and cryptocurrency security. His work addresses critical challenges like MEV (Miner Extractable Value) prevention, secure wallet implementations, and threshold cryptography for decentralized systems. He continues to advance fundamental cryptographic techniques like secret sharing and masking schemes, with a particular emphasis on making these techniques practical for real-world implementation. His research demonstrates a consistent trajectory from theoretical foundations to practical applications.

Professor Faust has received numerous prestigious awards:

• Copernicus Award (2020)
• 2nd place with Perun in the category scientists at the TU Ideas Competition (2019)
• DFG Emmy Noether Programme for project "Cryptography beyond the black-box model" (2015)
• Best paper award at Eurocrypt 2014 for "Unifying leakage models: from probing attacks to noisy leakage" (2014)
• Marie Curie Fellowship (2013)
• Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship (2007)

Professor Faust leads an active research group focusing on applied cryptography. His research has been supported by prestigious grants including the DFG Emmy Noether Programme, which provides exceptional early-career researchers with the opportunity to qualify for professorship by leading an independent junior research group. His work on the Shutter Network represents a significant practical application of his research in threshold cryptography for real-world blockchain systems. He has advised numerous PhD and Master's students who have gone on to contribute to both academia and industry.

Professor Faust heads the Applied Cryptography research group at TU Darmstadt. This group focuses on bridging the gap between theoretical cryptography and practical implementation security. Their work encompasses side-channel resistance, secure multi-party computation, blockchain security, and cryptographic protocol design. The group maintains strong collaborations with both academic institutions and industry partners to ensure their research addresses real-world security challenges.