Thomas Haines

Dr Thomas Haines serves as a Senior Lecturer at the School of Computing, Australian National University (ANU), having joined the institution in 2021. His academic trajectory includes a postdoctoral position at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2019-2021) and industry experience as Research and Development Manager at Polyas GmbH focusing on cryptographic voting systems.

Education

• PhD in Secure Computation from Cryptography, Queensland University of Technology (2017)

Research Focus

Haines specializes in foundational cryptographic mechanisms for democratic integrity, with primary research areas spanning Applied Cryptography, Electronic Voting protocols, Zero-knowledge proofs, Machine-aided verification systems, and Secure Computation frameworks. His work bridges theoretical cryptography with real-world deployment challenges, particularly in developing formally verified e-voting systems resistant to both classical and quantum computational threats.

Publication Trends

His 27 research outputs (2016-2025) demonstrate escalating focus on verifiable cryptographic primitives for electoral systems. Recent publications (2021-2025) reveal three critical trajectories: (1) Quantum-resistant voting protocols through STARKs and homomorphic encryption, (2) Formal verification of mix-net security properties, and (3) Privacy analysis of commercial location-tracking systems. This evolution reflects growing emphasis on everlasting privacy guarantees and machine-aided verification in mission-critical democratic infrastructure.

Scientific Awards

No specific awards were documented in the provided text despite an h-index of 8 and 209 Scopus citations.

Grants and Supervision

• Principal Investigator: "Efficient privacy-preserving proofs for secure e-government and e-voting" (2022-2026)
• Supervision Capacity: Registered to supervise postgraduate research students with focus on cryptographic systems

The active ARC-funded project targets development of quantum-resistant privacy proofs for electoral and governmental applications, with expected outcomes in verifiable ballot mixing and counted-as-collected verification protocols.