IACR Board of Directors election 2023

By Francisco Rodríguez-Henríquez

 

 

 

Short Statement

 

I've been working in cryptographic research for the last twenty-five years. I have served as PC member in many IACR conferences, and I have been General/Program co-chair in Latincrypt, ECC, CHES and CRYPTO. If elected as IACR Director, my main goals will be: (a) representing the cryptographic community belonging to the Global South, (b) representing the cryptographic community oriented to Applied Cryptography.

 

About me

 

I was full professor in the Computer Science Department of the Advanced Research Center (CINVESTAV-IPN) at Mexico City, from May 2002 to May 2022. Since May 2021, I am Technical Director in the Cryptography Research Centre of the Technology Innovation Institute at Abu Dhabi, UAE.

 

Throughout my academic career, I have advised or co-advised nine and forty Ph.D. students and master’s students, respectively. I was the co-author of two CHES papers that won the Best Paper Award in CHES 2009 and CHES 2013. I was also the co-author of a paper that was runner-up in CHES 2016 and another one that was runner-up in Asiacrypt 2022. I co-authored the 2006 Springer book “Cryptographic algorithms on reconfigurable hardware”.

 

As a Ph.D. student, back in 1999, I helped in the logistics organization of the first CHES conference in Worcester, Massachusetts. I was General chair or General co-chair of Latincrypt 2010, ECC 2012, Latincrypt 2015 and CRYPTO 2025. I was program co-chair of Waifi 2012, Latincrypt 2015, Waifi 2018 and CHES 2024.

 

I’m the co-author of several speed records of efficient scalar multiplication computation over binary elliptic curves. I was involved in the record breaking computation of a discrete logarithm in the finite field GF(3^(6 * 509)), which took us about 200-core years.

 

What I will do if I’m elected as IACR Director

 

As a Latin American native, I consider myself a representative of the Global South. In the Latin America region, I feel that I have contributed to the development of cryptography through the organization of several cryptographic conferences and the foundation (along with several fellow colleagues), of the Latincrypt conference and the ASCrypto cryptography summer school series. If I’m elected as IACR Director, I will strive for promoting geographic inclusiveness in all IACR events and summer schools.

 

As a cryptographer, I consider myself a representative of applied cryptography, especially, of the CHES community and the Workshop on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). If elected as IACR Director, I would like to encourage more publicly available cryptographic software and hardware libraries that implement the outstanding cryptographic algorithm novelties regularly presented in IACR conferences.