Fan Zhang
Assistant Prof, CS, Duke University
Researcher at Chainlink Labs
- fanz at cs.duke.edu
- Google Scholar
- GitHub
- Zoom
I’m an incoming Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Duke University starting 2021 Fall. I’m currently a security researcher at Chainlink Labs. My research primarily focuses on security/privacy/scalability problems in decentralized systems, especially those enabled by blockchain protocols and trusted execution environments (TEEs). I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University, advised by Prof. Ari Juels. I received my bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University. (Full bio here.)
I devise novel cryptographic protocols, build systems that work for a reason, and reveal interesting facts via empirical measurements. Here are some projects I’ve been working on:
- Decentralized identity: CanDID (Oakland'21)
- Order Fairness in Byzantine Fault Tolerance: Aequitas (Crypto'20)
- Smart contract oracles: DECO (CCS'20), Town Crier (CCS'16)
- Privacy-preserving protocols for blockchains: CHURP (CCS'19), Ekiden (EuroSP'19), Solidus (CCS'17)
- Trusted hardware and blockchain hybridization: Proof of useful work (Usenix'17), Sealed-glass proofs (EuroSP'17), Tesseract (CCS'19)
- Stealing ML models: Usenix'16
- and more…
- Some of them appeared in the news: Media coverage
I'm always looking for motivated students! Send me an email if you are interested.
Recent News
- May 2021: I will be serving on the TPC of PET 2022 and AFT 2021.
- Nov 2020: I joined the TPC of PET 2021 and CCS 2021.
- Nov 2020: I presented DECO at CCS'20.
- Oct 2020: I presented CanDID at the annual convention of Chinese Institute of Engineers - Greater New York Chapter.
- Oct 2020: I presented CanDID at Empire Hacking (organized by Trail of Bits).
- Oct 2020: I presented DECO at W3C Credential Community Group (CCG).
- Oct 2020: I joined the TPC of Financial Crypto 2021 and DeFi'21 workshop.
- Sep 2020: CanDID paper is accepted to IEEE S&P 2021!
- Aug 2020: DECO acquisition by ChainLink is announced!
- Jul 2020: CanDID, our latest work on Decentralized Identity (DID) is available online.
- Mar 2020: DECO accepted to CCS 2020!
- Jan 2020: Real World Crypto (RWC) video on DECO is now available online.
- Older ones...
- Oct 2019: I visited ETH Zurich and presented “Connecting Blockchains to the Real World”.
- Oct 2019: I presented Paralysis Proofs at ACM AFT 2019 at Zurich, Switzerland.
- Sep 2019: I visited IBM Waston Center and presented DECO (Decenetralized Oracles).
- Sep 2019: Two papers (CHURP, Tesseract) are accepted to ACM CCS'19! See you all in London!
- Aug 2019: “Paralysis Proofs: Secure Access-Structure Updates for Cryptocurrencies and More” is accepted to ACM AFT'19!
- Apr 2019: “Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contract Execution” is accepted to EuroS&P'19!
- Nov 2018: Town Crier is acquired by ChainLink!
- Mar 2018: I’m awarded the IBM PhD Fellowship Award for 2018-2020.
- Mar 2018: I presented Paralysis Proof at the 5th Bitcoin workshop @ Financial Crypto 2018 in Curacao.
- Aug 2017: Solidus: Confidential Distributed Ledger Transactions via PVORM is accepted to CCS'17.
- Aug 2017: I was invited to present Town Crier at Silicon Valley Ethereum Meetup.
- Aug 2017: I presented REM at USENIX Security 2017, Vancouver, Canada.
- Jul 2017: Intern at Intel Labs this summer.
- May 2017: Town Crier is officially live!
- May 2017: REM: Resource-Efficient Mining for Blockchains paper is accepted to USENIX Security'17. Available here.
- Oct 2016: Sealed-Glass Proofs: Using Transparent Enclaves to Prove and Sell Knowledge is accepted to EuroS&P ‘17.
- Jul 2016: Town Crier: An Authenticated Data Feed for Smart Contracts is accepted to ACM CCS'16.
- May 2016: Stealing Machine Learning Models via Prediction APIs is accepted to USENIX Security'16.
Media Coverage
- Chainlink acquires DECO protocol from Cornell University by FXStreet on Sep 08, 2020
- Chainlink’s New Acquisition From Cornell University Could Transform Blockchain For Good by Forbes on Aug 08, 2020
- Chainlink Acquires Blockchain Oracle Solution From Cornell University by CoinDesk on Aug 08, 2020
- Chainlink acquires a privacy-preserving oracle protocol from Cornell University by CoinTelegraph on Aug 08, 2020
- Chainlink Acquires DECO from Cornell University by PR Newswire on Aug 08, 2020
- MIT Tech Review China reported on CHURP by MIT Tech Review China on May 08, 2019
- Blockchain smart contracts are finally good for something in the real world by MIT Tech Review on Nov 08, 2018
- Chainlink Acquires Town Crier, a Hardware-Based Oracle by Unhashed on Nov 08, 2018
- Chainlink Blockchain Company Acquires Cornell’s Town Crier to Bolster Native Smart Contract Network by BitcoinExchangeGuide on Nov 08, 2018
- Cornell's Town Crier Acquired By Chainlink To Expand Decentralized Oracle Network by Forbes on Nov 08, 2018
- Big Hitter Crypto Funds Pile Into Privacy-Enhanced Smart Contract Startup Oasis Labs by Forbes on Jul 08, 2018
- Cornell IC3 Researchers Propose Solution to Bitcoin's Multisig "Paralysis" Problem by BitcoinMagazine on Jan 08, 2018
- The Ridiculous Amount of Energy It Takes to Run Bitcoin by IEEE Spectrum on Sep 08, 2017
- Trust Your Oracle? Cornell Launches Tool for Confidential Blockchain Queries by CoinDesk on May 08, 2017
- How Encrypted Weather Data Could Help Corporate Blockchain Dreams Come True by MIT Technology Review on May 08, 2017
- Town Crier Service Delivers Solid Data To Coders by ETHNews on May 08, 2017