Nigel Smart

Background

About Nigel Smart

After doing a PhD and other positions in Computational Number Theory I joined HP Labs in Bristol and switched to doing Cryptography. After a while I returned to academia at Bristol University, first as a Reader, then as a Professor. For my sins from 2006 to 2008 I served a term as Head of Computer Science. In Jan 2018 I joined the COSIC group in KU Leuven. My interests are still in cryptography; ranging from implementation through to provable security and the underlying mathematical primitives. I have done consultancy for a number of big international organization and companies, but usually only do this if the project is interesting. Am more focused these days on helping small start-ups in the cryptographic space. I was Vice President of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) from 2014 to 2016. I co-founded the Real World Crypto workshop with Kenny Paterson in 2012, this has now grown to the largest yearly technical gathering of cryptographers world-wide. I also co-founded Unbound Security a company specialising in mitigating cryptographic risks by deploying distributed cryptographic solutions. This was purchased by Coinbase in 2022. Specialties: Cryptography, Number Theory, Computer Security