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 cloud storage. I also sometimes end up doing a bit of 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 used to be 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!