REU Site: Cryptography and Coding Theory at the University of South Florida

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This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site award funds a new site focused on cryptography and coding theory at the University of South Florida. Cybersecurity plays a ubiquitous role in our daily lives. Cryptography and coding theory provide the most essential blocks to secure our cyberspace. Cryptography ensures confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of data, while coding theory contributes to the availability of data in case of transmission errors or unavailability of servers. Both areas address critical national security issues. The cybersecurity job market is currently experiencing a shortage of qualified personal, especially in the fields of cryptography and coding theory, which require significant technical training. Meanwhile, cryptography and coding theory are also active areas of research at the interface of computer science, mathematics, and physics. The breadth of skills required to perform successful independent research on these topics makes some of the most promising research angles very challenging to approach for new graduate students. For each of three summers, this REU Site offers 10 undergraduate students the opportunity to perform research for 10 weeks in cryptography and coding theory under the mentorship of an interdisciplinary team of senior personal with expertise in mathematics, quantum computing, applied cryptography and hardware security. Additionally, this REU aims to mitigate the gender gap and the diversity gap in cybersecurity by focusing its recruitment effort on women and under-represented communities. This REU Site focuses on some of the most active and interdisciplinary areas of research in cryptography and coding theory. In particular, students are given the opportunity to explore different angles of post-quantum cryptography, which consists in the design of cryptosystems that will resist attacks from future quantum computers. Research projects available to the students include the design and analysis of cryptosystems based on Euclidean lattices, on error-correcting codes, as well as the technical aspects pertaining to their practical deployment. Students are also given the opportunity to explore the mathematical aspects of block cipher design through projects on Almost Perfect non-Linear (APN) functions, as well as the design of error correcting codes that optimize the redundancy effort to mitigate the impact of the unavailability of servers. This REU Site also offers participants opportunities for personal development such as training in cryptography and coding theory by an interdisciplinary team of senior personnel, and professional workshops on intellectual property and graduate school applications. In addition, participants take part in an REU Site research symposium at the end of the summer that brings together REU Site participants from all disciplines across the University of South Florida. This site is jointly funded by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering and the Division of Mathematical Sciences REU programs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.