Novak Kaluđerović - Kolja

Curriculum Vitae

You can find my CV in pdf format here.

Interests

My main interests lie in secure implementations of cryptographic protocols, side-channel attacks as well as defence from side-channels, and post-quantum cryptographic protocols. I am also fond of algebraic and computational number theory, both in the theoretical and implementation domain. I am passionate about coding in C, and working on low-level and high-efficiency implementations. Further interests include the theory of quantum computing and quantum algorithms.

Work Experience

Postdoctoral researcher - Universität St. Gallen 2023 - Present
Works on verifiable distributed learning and side-channel attacks on post-quantum cryptography.
Cybersecurity lab, Universität St. Gallen - cybersecurity.unisg.ch

Applied scientist intern - AWS Cryptography, Seattle May-Aug 2022
Worked on reducing certificate sizes for lattice-based post-quantum public key certificates.
“Protocols, Algorithms, Libraries” lab, AWS Cryptography, Seattle

Research intern - Sapienza - Università di Roma Jan-Jun 2016
Worked on lower bounds for ordering problems and some open problems in computational complexity.
“Algorithms, Randomisation, Computation” lab, Sapienza, Rome

Education

PhD, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne 2017-2022
"Attacks on some post-quantum cryptographic protocols:
The case of the Legendre PRF and SIKE"

Thesis advisor: Arjen Lenstra, Serge Vaudenay Grade:  6.0/6.0

M.S., 110 cum laude, Sapienza - Università di Roma 2014-2016
"Il Crivello dei Campi di Numeri"
Thesis advisor: René Schoof, Corrado De Concini Grade: 29.93/30

B.S., 110 cum laude, Sapienza - Università di Roma 2011-2014
"Il Teorema dei Tre Quadrati"
Thesis advisor: Alessandro D'Andrea, Paolo Piccinni Grade: 28.95/30

Publications

SIKE Channels: Zero-value side-channel attacks on SIKE
A practical power analysis on the isogeny computation in SIKE.
CHES 2022
[paper] [preprint]

Single-trace clustering power analysis of the point swapping procedure in the three point ladder of Cortex-M4 SIKE
A practical power analysis on the point swap procedure in SIKE.
COSADE 2022
[paper] [preprint]

Full key recovery side-channel attack on ephemeral SIKE
A practical power analysis attack on the three-point ladder in SIKE.
COSADE 2021
[paper] [preprint]

Cryptanalysis of the generalised Legendre pseudorandom function
Analysis of a general algorithm for breaking the Legendre pseudorandom function.
ANTS XIV 2020
[paper]

Improved key recovery on the Legendre PRF
Practical algorithms for breaking the Legendre pseudorandom function.
[preprint]

Teaching Experience

Teaching 2017-Present
Served as a teaching assistant and replacement lecturer for the following Master and Bachelor courses:
  7,850:    Cyber Security 2023
  CS-450:   Advanced algorithms 2019
  CS-101:   AICC I 2018, 2019, 2021
  COM-102:  AICC II 2018, 2020
  MATH-111: Linear Algebra 2020

Computer science class for visiting students 2018, 2019, 2021
Lectured cryptography to visiting high school students from all around Switzerland.

"Path of Excellence" seminar 2016
Held a seminar on the topic of primality testing algorithms under the supervision of prof. Alessandro Panconesi.

Student supervision 2017-2021
Personally supervised 12 Bachelor and 3 Master level research and implementation-oriented semester projects, and one successful Master thesis.

Honours and Awards

Teaching Assistant Award 2018, 2019
An award given by EPFL to the best teaching assistants.

Doctoral EDIC Fellowship for doctoral studies 2017
One year fellowship for prospective doctoral students at EPFL.

Montenegrin national scholarship for excellence 2014, 2016
A scholarship awarded by the Montenegrin ministry of education to its highest achieving students in foreign universities.

Laziodisu scholarship 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
Scholarship providing funding and full tuition waiver to high achieving students during their Bachelors and Masters degree studies awarded by the Lazio region.

Laziodisu premio di laurea 2014
Award given to students with an exceptional grade upon graduation awarded by the Lazio region.

Other

Server administrator 2018-2022
Responsible for the administration of TRX and Unicorn random elliptic curve and random number beacons on trx.epfl.ch.

Paper reviewing 2018-2023
Reviewed multiple papers for Number-Theoretic Methods in Cryptology, Journal of Mathematical Cryptology, MathCrypt, Journal of Experimental Algorithmics, COSADE, Asiacrypt, Eurocrypt, PKC.

Languages

Serbian Native
English Fluent
Italian Fluent
French  Basic communication skills

Programning Languages

C, Python, Sage