Prof. Dr. MPYANA M. Merlec is a Distributed Computing Systems (DCS) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Architect, Web 3.0 Solutions Engineer, and Computer Scientist with a long IT career history. He is a Research Professor at the Blockchain Research Institute, Korea University, Seoul, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering (Software) in 2022, an MSE in Computer Science and Radio Communication Engineering in 2017 (with Academic Excellence Awards), both from Korea University and a BSc in Computer Science and Engineering (Information Systems Engineering) from UPL in 2011. Before joining iBEL (Intelligent Blockchain Engineering Lab.) in 2017 and iLab (Internet Computing Lab.) in 2015 as a Researcher (R&D) at Korea University, he was an IT Business Support Specialist at ProCredit Bank Congo Ltd., (2010-2014). He served as a reviewer for IEEE, ACM Computing Survey, Elsevier, Springer Nature, and MDPI publishing journals.

His research interests lie in the fields of Web 3.0, Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems, Distributed Ledger Technology (i.e., Blockchain and Smart Contracts), Distributed/Decentralized Applications (Dapps), and Secure Internet Architecture (SCION); 

※ As well as the following Digital Transformation related topics : 

• Trust over the Internet (ToIP), Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), Verifiable Credentials (VCs), and Verifiable Presentations (VPs);

• Blockchain-enabled FinTech: DeFi, e-banking, Mobile Payments, e-commerce, Supply chain management, and Tokenization/NFTs;

• Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), Cryptocurrency Automated/Algorithmic Trading, Business Intelligence (BI);

• Cyber Security and Digital Forensics, Data Security and Privacy Protection, GDPR compliance;

• Artificial Intelligence (AI),  Large Language Model (LLM), Generative AI (GenAI), Artificial General Intelligence (AGI);

• Data Science, Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning and Deep Learning;

• Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Automation, and Robotics.