Supervision and Teaching

Supervision

I have been research director of about 18 researchers at Heliax AG (7 months), team lead of  the W3F research team with about 10 researchers for (1 year) and acting CTO for about 25 technical staff (1 year), I have supervised two interns and a student assistant.

Supervision of Interns and Student Assistants:

Jonas Gehrlein,

Investigating user behavior and improving Usability and  for validator selection in the Polkadot Network,

industrial internship at Web3 Foundation, July-October 2020. 

Zsófia Molnár,  

theoretical analysis of Polkadot's parachain allocation,

industrial internship at Web3 Foundation, July-August 2019. 

Bernd Conrad, 

Implementing experiments for Tor study, 

student assistant at TU Darmstadt, 3 months in 2014. 

Thesis Supervision

Assessment of Bachelor/Master Thesis

Aleixo Sanchez Keller,

Confidential Cross-Blockchain Exchanges: Designing a Privacy-Preserving Interoperability Scheme,

Master thesis, co-supervision with Alistair Stewart and Petar Tsankov, Department of Computer Science, SRI lab, ETH Zurich, 28 December 2020.

Tom De Keyser:

Implementing a Verifiable Mix Network,

Master thesis, Department of Computer Science, KU Leuven, September 2017. 

Daily Supervision of Bachelor/Master Thesis:

Aleixo Sanchez Keller,

Confidential Cross-Blockchain Exchanges: Designing a Privacy-Preserving Interoperability Scheme,

Master thesis, co-supervision with Alistair Stewart and Petar Tsankov, Department of Computer Science, SRI lab, ETH Zurich, 28 December 2020.

Tom De Keyser,

Implementing a Verifiable Mix Network,

Master thesis, co-supervision with Elena Andreeva, promoters: Prof. Claudia Diaz and Prof. Bart Preneel, Department of Computer Science, KU Leuven, September 2017. 

Samantha Wojtowicz,

Investigating Tor's Resilience using Shadow, 

Master thesis, co-supervision with Marc Juarez and Prof. Claudia Diaz, promotor: Prof. Luc Vandeurzen, Groep T department, KU Leuven, August 2016.

Bernd Conrad,

Analyzing the Effectiveness of DoS Attacks on Tor, 

Bachelor thesis, promotor: Prof. Johannes Buchmann, Department of Computer Science, TU Darmstadt, April 2014.

Teaching

Guest Lecturer and Instructor:

• "Scalability and Privacy", CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hours lecture, organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU),  19 April 2024. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies", CAS Blockchain course, 3 hours lecture,  organised by the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 19 April 2024. 

• "Scalability and Privacy", CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hours lecture, organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU),  03 November 023. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies", CAS Blockchain course, 3 hours lecture,  organised by the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 03 November 2023. 

• "Scalability and Privacy", CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hours lecture, organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU),  06 May 2023. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies", CAS Blockchain course, 3 hours lecture,  organised by the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 06 May 2023. 

• "Scalability and Privacy", CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hours lecture, organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU),  26 November 2022. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies", CAS Blockchain course, 3 hours lecture,  organised by the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 26 November 2022. 

• "Blockchain Interoperability", 2 hours, online tutorial at ICBC conference, Shanghai, 2 May 2022.  

• "Smart Contract Platforms", CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hour lecture, organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU),  8 April 2022. 

• "Scalability and Privacy", CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hour lecture, organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU),  2 April 2022. 

• "Polkadot: Heterogenous Sharding Protocol", CAS Blockchain course, 3 hours lecture,  organised by the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 3 December 2021. 

• "Smart Contract Platforms",  CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hour lecture,  organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 26 November 2021. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies", CAS Blockchain course, 3 hours lecture,  organised by the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 19 November 2021. 

• "Polkadot: Heterogenous Sharding Protocol", 1,5 hour,  Blockchain Summer school organised by University of Zurich, 12 July 2021. 

• "Smart Contract Platforms", CAS Cryptocurrency and Finance course, 3 hours lecture, organised by  the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 24 April 2021. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies", CAS Blockchain, course, 3 hours lecture, organised by the University of Applied Science and Arts of Lucerne (HSLU), 14 November 2020. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies",  online lecture series of SEBAversity, 1 hour, organised by SEBA bank, 6 October 2020. 

• "Interoperability for Blockchain Technologies", CAS Blockchain course, 1,5 hour lecture, organised by the University of Applied Science Zurich (ZHAW), online course, 9 May 2020.

Teaching Assistant for Lectures, Seminars, and Lab Projects:

• Winter Semester 2017/2018 at KU Leuven:      

  • Privacy and Big Data (lecture), I was responsible for tutoring exercise sessions and grading final reports.

• Summer Semester 2016 at KU Leuven:    

  • re-exam of Privacy and Big Data, I was involved in grading final reports  

• Winter Semester 2015/2016 at KU Leuven:      

  • Privacy and Big Data (lecture), I was involved in designing a template for the final essay/report, tutoring exercise sessions, and grading final reports.

• Winter Semester 2014/2015 at TU Darmstadt:

  • Cryptography (lab) not as an official TA, I was responsible for supervising and grading a programming student project.

  • Cryptography, Privacy, and Security (seminar), I was responsible for supervising four students on their chosen topic and grading their presentations and final reports.

    • The work of one of the students, Matthias Goehring, was published in IWPE 2015.

• Summer Semester 2014 at TU Darmstadt:

  • re-exam of  Introduction to Cryptography, I was involved in exam design and responsible for exam coordination and grading.

  • Security, Society, and Usability (seminar), I was responsible for supervising two students on their chosen topic and grading their presentations and final reports.

  • Introduction to Computer Science II (core lecture) with about 650 students, I was responsible for:

    • • obtaining funding from CS faculty (TU Darmstadt) to employ 29 tutors for weekly exercise sessions; I was also responsible for their hiring process and supervision,

      • coordinating the final exam and grading.

• Winter Semester 2013/2014 at TU Darmstadt:

  • Cryptography, Privacy, and Security (seminar), I was responsible for supervising seven students on their chosen topic and grading their presentations and final reports.

  • Introduction to Cryptography (advanced lecture) with approximately 100-150 students, I was responsible for:

    • obtaining funding from CS faculty (TU Darmstadt) to employ three tutors for weekly exercise sessions; I was also responsible for their hiring process and supervision,

    • involvement in the design of weekly exercise sheets, the mid-term assignment, and final exam

    • coordinating the final exam and grading.

• Summer Semester 2013 at TU Darmstadt:

  • re-exam of  Introduction to Cryptography, I was involved in exam design and responsible for exam coordination and grading.

  • Electronic Society (seminar), I was responsible for supervising two students on the chosen topic and grading the presentations and final reports.

• Winter Semester 2012/2013 at TU Darmstadt:

  • Electronic Society (seminar), I was responsible for supervising four students on their chosen topic and grading their presentations and final reports.

  • Introduction to Cryptography (advanced lecture) with approximately 100-150 students, I was responsible for:

    • • obtaining funding from CS faculty (TU Darmstadt) to employ three tutors for weekly exercise sessions; I was also responsible for their hiring process and supervision,

      • involvement in the design of weekly exercise sheets, the mid-term assignment, and final exam

      • coordinating the final exam and grading.

Tutoring and Mentoring Service for Students:

• I was mentoring newly arriving undergraduate students in the Winter semester 2010/2011 and Summer semester 2011 as part of a mentoring program at Saarland University called Mentorenprogramm der UdS.

• I tutored for the "Logical Circuits" lecture for one semester during my undergrads.