About Me

I am currently a Professor of Computer Science at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. On 30th May 2024, I have completed my 10 years at IISc. My area of research is Cryptography, focusing on theoretical and practical aspects of secure multiparty computation protocols. I received my PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras and held post-doctoral positions at University of Bristol, UK, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Aarhus University, Denmark. I spent my first sabbatical between August 2022-July 2023, at Google Research as a visiting faculty researcher.

My research has been recognized with Prof. S. K. Chatterjee Award for Outstanding Woman Researcher or Industry Leader 2023 by IISc. (2023), Google Privacy Research Faculty Award 2023, J P Morgan Chase Faculty Award 2022, SONY Faculty Innovation Award 2021, Google Research Award 2020,  NASI Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award 2018,   SERB Women Excellence award 2016,  INAE Young Engineer award 2016 and associateships with various scientific bodies such as Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).[1]  I am a council member of Indian Association for Research in Computing Science (IARCS). I have co-authored more than 100 research papers in highly reputed publication venues in Theoretical Computer Science, Cryptography and Security such as Journal of ACM, Journal of Cryptology, FOCS, STOC, CRYPTO, EUROCRYPT, ASIACRYPT, IEEE S&P, ACM CCS, NDSS, Usenix Security, PODC, Distributed Computing, TCC, DISC, Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing etc. I have also co-authored a research monogram on Multi-party Computation titled “Secure Multiparty Computation against Passive Adversaries” published by Springer. I have graduated five PhD students, each of whom are rising stars in the community and are holding positions in prestigious academic institutes and research industry.  More details about my academic profile can be found in my resume given below.

On the personal front, I am a mother of a wonder girl, Aparajita. The meaning of Aparajita is invincible. I decided the name of my baby as early as I started dreaming. The name resonates with my soul. Aparajita is therefore my soul’s signature and the name of my proposed expedition. Ashish, my better half, is the wind beneath my wings. It’s an alchemy when we are together.  Two humans who supported me unconditionally, in its truest sense, since I came to this world are my parents Sima Patra and Ahibhusan Patra.  Swagata and Ankita, my sisters are my all-time best buddies in all sorts of mischiefs.

While I am a cryptographer by profession, I am a photographer by passion. As a cryptographer, I enable secure computation and communication. As a photographer, I unroll my soul to the most dramatic moments of nature. Through my photographs, I promise to transport the viewers to a secret world — that houses sublimity, serenity, peace; while the lower order traits like bias, divide, discrimination, and otherness find no place. The picture on the first page is taken by me. Painting is yet another recent obsession of mine. It is Aparajita who ensured my surprise entry to this world. I view photography and painting as the two wings that allow me fly to a different realm. In this way, I believe — “I create, therefore I am”. I have conducted my first solo photography exhibition called “Nature in Canvas” at the Department of Computer Science, IISc between 7th to 20th July 2023. I plan to conduct more such exhibitions of my paintings and photographs. Links to my resume, website, group’s website, photography page and paintings are given below.

Resume, 

website,  

Research group’s website at IISc, 

photography gallery, 

 painting gallery.

[1] The awards provide money for enabling research. They are not meant for personal use.