Wouter Lueks

Wouter Lueks is a faculty member at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken, Germany. His research focuses on designing secure, practical, and privacy-friendly systems using applied cryptography, anonymous communication, and systems engineering. He leads a lab and actively mentors PhD and PostDoc researchers.

Education:

• PhD in Computer Science (Radboud University, Netherlands), advised by Jaap-Henk Hoepman and Bart Jacobs.
• Postdoctoral Researcher at EPFL, Switzerland (SPRING Lab).

Research Interests:

• Privacy-preserving systems for humanitarian aid and public health.
• Cryptography in decentralized networks and anonymous communication.
• Secure protocols for identity management and voting systems.

Key Publications: Recent work includes privacy-preserving digital wallets for aid distribution (IEEE S&P 2025), biometric deduplication systems (IEEE S&P 2024), and decentralized proximity tracing protocols (Commun. ACM 2022). His research emphasizes practical applications of zero-knowledge proofs and attribute-based credentials.

Awards:

• Distinguished Paper Award at IEEE S&P 2023.
• Runner-up Casper Bowden PET Award 2021 and CNIL-Inria Privacy Award 2021.

Advising & Grants: Supervises PhD/PostDoc researchers and collaborates on projects funded by EU and industry grants. Active in open-source contributions, including the zksk library and Lightnion anonymous communication tool.

Labs/Teams: Principal investigator at CISPA, collaborates with the SPRING Lab (EPFL) and leads interdisciplinary teams in privacy-enhancing technologies.