
Dr Robert Granger
Academic and research departments
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Department of Computer Science.Biography
Robert Granger holds an MSci from the School of Mathematics, University of Bristol (2002) and a PhD from the Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol (2006). He has held postdoctoral positions at: the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, University of Waterloo, Canada; his alma mater, again in the Cryptography and Information Security Group; and at the Claude Shannon Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland. Before joining the University of Surrey as a Lecturer in Secure Systems in December 2018, he was a scientist in the Laboratory for Cryptologic Algorithms, EPFL, Switzerland.
Areas of specialism
Affiliations and memberships
News
In the media
Research
Research interests
I am a computational number theorist whose main specialism is the number-theoretic assumptions, applications and algorithms underlying public key cryptography. I have over a decade of experience conceiving and leading often groundbreaking research projects in this area, and am an expert in foundational cryptographic security assumptions. In particular, I have designed several highly original discrete logarithm algorithms for various algebraic groups (one receiving the Best Paper Award, CRYPTO 2013) and have set several world records for discrete logarithm computations with my teams. I have a natural passion for attacking interesting and hard problems (in cryptography and elsewhere), combining deep insights with powerful mathematical and computational techniques. In addition to cryptography and cryptanalysis, number theory, algebraic geometry, algorithm design, discrete mathematics and finite field theory, I am interested in various theoretical properties of irreducible polynomials and curves over finite fields.
Supervision
Postgraduate research supervision
Current PhD students:
- Bruno Sterner
Previous PhD students (co-supervised):
- Benjamin Wesolowski (EPFL 2018)
- Naomi Benger (CSI 2010)
My teaching
This year (2020/21) I am teaching
- Asymmetric Cryptography (COMM045) in the Information Security MSc,
- Foundations of Computing II (COM1033) in the CS BSc and the CIT BSc (jointly with Dr. Yunpeng Li).
I am supervising Professional Projects (COM3001), MSc dissertations (COMM002) and Professional Training placements.
I am also the Examinations Officer for the department.