Joint first place, UK-US PETs Prize Challenge
STARLIT was recognised for privacy-preserving federated learning for financial crime prevention.
About
Dr Aydin Abadi
A researcher in cryptographic protocols and cryptanalysis, working across formal security, protocol design, implementation and experimental evaluation.
Biography
Research profile
Dr Aydin Abadi is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Cybersecurity in Newcastle University’s School of Computing and Director of the Cryptography and AI Security Lab.
His research spans cryptographic foundations, protocol design and cryptanalysis. He studies formal security models, constructions and proofs, as well as implementation and evaluation where appropriate, for problems in private computation, private data access and verifiable digital exchange.
His research includes secure multi-party computation, private set intersection, oblivious transfer, verifiable computation, time-lock techniques, post-quantum cryptography, cryptanalysis, secure payments and blockchain security.
His team was a joint first-place winner in the UK-US Privacy-Enhancing Technologies Prize Challenge for STARLIT. His research has appeared or been accepted at venues including ACM CCS, NDSS, PETS, ASIACRYPT, AsiaCCS and IEEE EuroS&P.
Selected recognition
Selected awards
Staff Excellence Award nomination
University of Gloucestershire.
Euan Minto Prize
Awarded for the best paper authored by a research student in the University of Strathclyde Computer Science Department.
Professional service
Current and recent programme committees
- PETS2027
- USENIX Security2026
- ACM SAC2026
- IEEE/ACM UCC2025
- WISE2024-2026
- ACM CCS2025
Research support
Selected funded work
Selected externally supported projects connected with cryptographic protocol design, privacy and payment security.
Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences · 2025–2027
Transforming the Security of Kuwait’s Online Payment Systems
Co-investigator on a project examining the security of online payment systems in Kuwait.
REPHRAIN
PAYMENT
Research on cryptographic mechanisms for payment disputes and the reimbursement of fraud victims.
SPRITE+ Project Partner Challenge · 2026
Developing a Trust-Enhancing Analytics Infrastructure for Real-World Community-Building Platforms
Academic lead on a project with Impromptu adapting delegated oblivious transfer to privacy-preserving analytics for event-platform workflows.
Academic background
Education and appointments
PhD, Secure Multi-Party Computation
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
MSc, Computer Science
University of Leeds
BSc, Software Engineering
University of Lahijan
Previous roles include Senior Research Fellow at UCL, Lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire, and Research Associate in the University of Edinburgh’s Blockchain Technology Laboratory.
Teaching
Current teaching
Systems Security
Newcastle University · Postgraduate
Research Methods and Group Project in Security and Resilience
Newcastle University · Postgraduate · Module Leader from 2026/27
Research Methods and Group Project in Advanced Computer Science
Newcastle University · Postgraduate
Previous teaching
Earlier module leadership
Introduction to Cryptography and Information Security
University of Gloucestershire · BSc and MSc · Module Leader · 2020–2021
Blockchain Technology and its Applications
University of Gloucestershire · MSc · Module Leader · 2020–2021
Earlier teaching also includes Privacy-Enhancing Technologies at UCL and blockchain and smart-contract teaching at the University of Edinburgh.