Sarah Meiklejohn

Sarah Meiklejohn

Bio

Photo of Sarah

I am a Professor in Cryptography and Security at University College London (UCL) and a Staff Research Scientist at Google. At UCL, I am affiliated with the Information Security Group in the Computer Science department. I am also an Associate Director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3).

I received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego under the joint supervision of Mihir Bellare and Stefan Savage. During my PhD, I spent the summers of 2011 and 2013 at MSR Redmond, working in the cryptography group with Melissa Chase. I obtained an Sc.M. in Computer Science from Brown University under the guidance of Anna Lysyanskaya in 2009, and an Sc.B. in Mathematics from Brown in 2008.

Contact

s.meiklejohn [at] ucl [dot] ac [dot] uk

Department of Computer Science
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT

Projects

TITANIUM: Tools for the Investigation of Transactions in Underground Markets (May 2017 – May 2020)
Glass Houses: Transparency and Privacy in Information Economies (November 2016 – March 2021)

Supervision

I am not working full-time at UCL, which means I am not taking on any postdocs, PhD students, or interns for now. This means that if you email me asking for such a position I will not respond. Thanks for understanding!

I am fortunate to have worked with the following people in the past:

Maria Santos (PhD student → postdoc at ENS Lyon)
George Kappos (PhD student → Chainalysis)
Haaroon Yousaf (PhD student → Pometry)
Sarah Azouvi (PhD student → Protocol Labs)
Elizabeth Crites (postdoc → postdoc at University of Edinburgh → Web3 Foundation)
Mustafa Al-Bassam (PhD student → Celestia)
Kruakae Pothong (postdoc → 5Rights Foundation)
Mary Maller (PhD student → Ethereum Foundation)
Sergi Delgado Segura (postdoc → Talaia Labs → Chaincode Labs)
Shehar Bano (postdoc → Facebook)
Patrick McCorry (postdoc → faculty at King's College London → PISA Research → Arbitrum)

Publications

(Click year to show/hide)

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

Teaching

Spring 2019 and 2021: Security
Spring 2019: Cryptocurrencies
Spring 2015 – 2018: Introduction to Cybersecurity
Autumn 2017: Programming for Crime Scientists

Events

Workshop on Cryptography Applied to Transparency Systems (CATS), 30 November 2023 (co-organizer and program chair)
UK Crypto Day, 23 June 2023 (co-organizer)
IEEE Workshop on Security for Harassment Online, Protections, and Empowerment (SecHOPE), 25 May 2023 (co-organizer)
London(-ish) Crypto Day, 24 November 2022 (co-organizer)
Eurocrypt, 17-21 October 2021 (invited speaker) (slides)
IEEE Security & Privacy on the Blockchain (S&B), 7 September 2020 (keynote speaker)
Security Standardisation Research Conference (SSR), 11 November 2019 (keynote speaker)
International Workshop on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology (CBT), 6-7 September 2018 (keynote speaker)
Summer school on real-world crypto and privacy, 11-15 June 2018 (organizing committee member)
London Crypto Day, 22 September 2017 (co-organizer and speaker)
Swiss Blockchain Summer School, 21-24 June 2017 (speaker)
Summer school on real-world crypto and privacy, 5-9 June 2017 (speaker)
IACR Summer School on Blockchain Technologies, 30 May - 2 June 2016 (co-organizer)

Program (co-)chair

2020: AFT (Advances in Financial Technologies)
2018: Financial Crypto
2016: BITCOIN (Third Workshop on Bitcoin and Blockchain Research)

Associate chair

2023: IEEE S&P ("Oakland")
2021: CCS (chair for the Blockchain and Distributed Systems track)

Program committee member

2024: USENIX Security
2023: USENIX Security, USENIX ATC, SBC
2022: IEEE S&P ("Oakland"), USENIX Security, SBC
2021: Financial Crypto, SOSP
2020: USENIX Security, EuroS&P, WEIS
2019: IEEE S&P ("Oakland"), PETS, Enigma, RWC, USENIX Security
2018: PETS, Crypto Valley, Crypto, CBT
2017: NDSS, IEEE S&P ("Oakland"), USENIX Security
2016: Eurocrypt, Financial Crypto, WEIS, eCrime, USENIX Security, NSPW, CCS
2015: Financial Crypto, BITCOIN, PKC, Crypto, USENIX Security, NSPW, CCS
2014: CT-RSA, ProvSec
2013: Pairing

Photo credit: Rosa Koolhoven