Mayank Varia Appointed Co-Director of BU RISCS Center

The Hariri Institute for Computing is pleased to announce the appointment of Mayank Varia as co-director of BU’s Center for Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security (RISCS). In this capacity he will continue to work with researchers at BU and beyond on a range of security and privacy research projects and initiatives.

Dr. Varia joined BU in 2014 as director of the Modular Approach to Cloud Security (MACS) project, which is funded through a $10M NSF Frontier and involves 13 PIs from four universities. In addition to leading the ongoing success of this project, he has been instrumental in several other initiatives within RISCS and the Hariri Institute for Computing. Mayank has contributed significantly to cryptography and security education in the CS department, creating a new course that gives students the opportunity to design original cryptography primitives and co-teaching a course on secure multi-party computation. Mayank has been indispensable in expanding the reach and connections between RISCS and other important constituents not only at BU but also at funding agencies, government laboratories, and industry. He played a major role in the development of a new research collaboration with the Honda Research Institute, using his unmatched ability to bridge the academic and industrial divide in terms of relevant research. This new appointment recognizes Mayank’s leadership abilities and role as a vital member of the Hariri Institute and RISCS teams.

Dr. Varia holds a PhD in Mathematics from MIT (2010), where he did work on foundational aspects of cryptography.  From 2010 to 2014, he was a researcher at MIT Lincoln Labs, where his research encompassed multiple aspects of applied cryptography.  In particular, he has been involved in building mechanisms for homomorphic encryption, searchable encryption and other mechanisms and protocols for security-preserving manipulation of big data. Here at BU, he has played an instrumental role in developing the multi-party computing platform that allows multiple organizations to leverage the cloud’s centralization, availability, and computing power without entrusting the cloud to view their data. This application is a crucial component of the University’s new partnership with the Boston Women’s Workforce Council, which uses the platform to analyze pay equity data from over 60 Boston-area businesses. Dr. Varia is involved in a variety of research projects that tackle security challenges at all levels.

Check out this brief video about the MACS project, which is funded by a $10M NSF Frontier grant: