Interests and expertise

Jacob's main research interest is the implementation of cryptographic protocols as well as the bridge between cryptographers and developers. He has worked on implementing zero-knowledge proofs, designing cryptographic API's, and working with non-cryptographers on the design and implementation of cryptographic protocols.

Jacob has a passion for teaching and explaining, and this has really come through in his specialization. He believes the most important job of cryptographers is being able to convey the necessary information about our protocols to the developers who will be implementing them in a clear and intuitive manner.

Commentary

While at Supra, Jacob has been working closely with both the research team and development team on the architecture of our Verifiable Random Function (VRF) Service. That is, in addition to working with the research team to update the VRF protocol, he has been working with the engineering team to make sure that their implementations match the specifications of the research team. Currently his is working on a paper that categorizes and analyzes the various modes one might use to implement a dVRF.

Additionally he spends time working on any cryptographic problems the development team needs solved. For example, he works on issues related to the cryptographic backend and adding support for additional cryptographic functionalities such as variations on signature algorithms. He also has been spending time refactoring the cryptographic backend on which all of our applications run so that it will be more intuitive to use and we will have fewer issues in the future.