Matilda Backendal

About

I’m a PhD student (well, technically a “doctoral candidate”) at ETH Zurich, where I do research in provable security for applied cryptography with a focus on forward security. I’ve also recently tried my hand at cryptanalysis. My supervisor is Kenny Paterson.

Before I joined ETH, I studied engineering mathematics at Lunds Tekniska Högskola (LTH) in Sweden. I also worked with Mihir Bellare during an exchange at UCSD. I wrote my master thesis on puncturable symmetric key encapsulation mechanisms, supervised by Felix Günther.

I am part of the board of VMI, the association of scientific staff at the Department of Computer Science at ETH. VMI’s mission is to make the department of computer science a great place to work and study. If you are a prospective or current employee at the department and want to learn more about VMI, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

In my free time, I like climbing and hiking in the beautiful mountains of Switzerland, trying new foods and learning languages, among other things!