Candidates for the computer science tenure-track faculty position openings in the College of Computing will be visiting campus this semester, including Yanxue Jia.
Bio
Yanxue Jia is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2022. She is an applied cryptographer and her current research focuses on secure (multi-party) computation, blockchains, and provable security. She is dedicated to advancing cryptography to solve security and privacy issues in existing as well as emerging real-world applications. Her work has been published at top-tier conferences, such as USENIX Security, ACM CCS, IEEE S&P, and Asiacrypt. She has also served as a Program Committee member for conferences, such as ACM CCS and FC.
Date and time of visit: Monday, March 31, 2025, 3 p.m. ET, following a social hour in Rekhi 218
Location: Rekhi G005
Abstract
Secure Data Collaboration via Cryptography
Data plays a crucial role in collaboration—for accessing services, enhancing products, making decisions, and driving innovation. However, data also holds immense value, and directly sharing it with others not only transfers this value but also raises significant security and privacy concerns, especially when sensitive information is involved. To address this challenge, her research leverages secure multi-party computation (MPC) to enable people to enjoy gains from data collaboration without exposing their data.
In this talk, she will present highly efficient secure two-party computation solutions for key data collaboration scenarios involving set operations and end-to-end communication. Specifically, private set operations reveal the operation results while hiding the other items, making them valuable for many secure data collaboration scenarios. Her work unifies diverse private set operations into a framework, and further designs private set union protocols with both stronger security and better performance. In addition, when accessing communication services, leaking metadata—that is, who communicated with whom, when, and the extent of their interactions—poses significant privacy risks, while communication content is protected. To address this, she leverages two non-colluding servers to assist users in their communications while protecting their metadata. Finally, Yanxue will outline her future research directions, which include achieving secure data collaborations for compute-intensive (e.g., AI-driven) tasks and developing secure data management systems, to support data-driven digital ecosystems.
About the College of Computing
The Michigan Tech College of Computing, established in 2019, is the first academic unit in Michigan dedicated solely to computing, and one of only a handful such academic units in the United States. The college is composed of two academic departments. The Computer Science department offers four bachelor of science programs in computer science, cybersecurity, data science, and software engineering; four master of science programs in applied computer science, computer science, cybersecurity, and data science; and a doctoral program in computer science. The Applied Computing department offers four bachelor of science programs in cybersecurity, electrical engineering technology, information technology, and mechatronics; and two master of science programs in health informatics and mechatronics. The college also helps to administer an interdisciplinary doctoral program in computational science and engineering.
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