David A. Wilson

I am currently a PhD student at MIT working in the Theory Group of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Specifically, I work in the Cryptography and Information Security Group; my advisor is Shafi Goldwasser. Most of my research involves modern theoretical cryptography, in topics such as identity-based encryption and homomorphic encryption.

I received Bachelor's degrees from MIT in computer science and mathematics in 2004 and an M.Eng. in computer science in 2005. I then worked as a software engineer before returning to academia in 2009 to work on a PhD.

If you want to contact me, the best way is email. My username is dwilson, and my university's domain is mit.edu.


Publications and Research

Papers

Hash functions

In 2008 I entered the NIST Hash Function Competition. My entry (DCH) fell quickly in the first round. For more information--and my attacks on two other entries--please see my SHA-3 page.

Teaching

I have worked as a teaching assistant for the following courses:

Other

I am a member and former Chair of the Student Information Processing Board at MIT. SIPB is a student group devoted to computers and computing technology, and has been working on computing projects and providing computing-related services since 1969.

I enjoy puzzles, and frequently compete in puzzle competitions such as the MIT Mystery Hunt and the Microsoft College Puzzle Challenge.

In case you're wondering where my hometown is for some reason, when I was growing up my mother worked in an office building colloquially known as "the beer can".