I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, and a member of the Theory of Computing group.
My work focuses on post-quantum proof systems. My interests include probabilistic proof systems and zero knowledge in general, post-quantum cryptography, quantum information, coding theory and computational complexity.
I was an assistant professor at the University of Warwick until 2024, and a visiting assistant professor at NYU for the 2023-24 academic year. Before that, I was a postdoc at Boston University, hosted by Ran Canetti. I received my PhD from UC Berkeley, where I was advised by Alessandro Chiesa. I hold a master's degree in theoretical computer science from ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Cambridge.
Teaching
Latest manuscripts
  1. A Zero-Knowledge PCP Theorem
    Tom Gur, Jack O'Connor and Nicholas Spooner
  2. Quantum Rewinding for IOP-Based Succinct Arguments
    Alessandro Chiesa, Marcel Dall'Agnol, Zijing Di, Ziyi Guan and Nicholas Spooner
Publications
  1. Untangling the Security of Kilian's Protocol: Upper and Lower Bounds
    Alessandro Chiesa, Marcel Dall'Agnol, Ziyi Guan, Nicholas Spooner and Eylon Yogev
    Accepted to TCC 2024.
  2. Perfect Zero Knowledge PCPs for #P
    Tom Gur, Jack O'Connor and Nicholas Spooner
    STOC 2024, Vancouver, Canada. [talk by Jack] ITC 2024, Santa Barbara, USA.
    Featured in Quanta Magazine.
  3. An efficient quantum parallel repetition theorem and applications
    John Bostanci, Luowen Qian, Nicholas Spooner and Henry Yuen
    QIP 2024, Taipei, Taiwan (short plenary). [talk by John] STOC 2024, Vancouver, Canada.
  4. On the Necessity of Collapsing for Quantum and Post-Quantum Commitments
    Marcel Dall'Agnol and Nicholas Spooner
    QCW 2022, QIP 2023 (poster) and TQC 2023 (Outstanding Paper Prize).
  5. Speed-Stacking: Fast Sublinear Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Disjunctions
    Aarushi Goel, Mathias Hall-Andersen, Gabriel Kaptchuk and Nicholas Spooner
    Eurocrypt 2023, Lyon, France.
  6. Proof-Carrying Data From Arithmetized Random Oracles
    Megan Chen, Alessandro Chiesa, Tom Gur, Jack O'Connor and Nicholas Spooner
    Eurocrypt 2023, Lyon, France.
  7. The Superlinearity Problem in Post-Quantum Blockchains
    Sunoo Park and Nicholas Spooner
    Financial Cryptography (FC) 2023, Bol, Croatia.
  8. Quantum Rewinding for Many-Round Protocols
    Russell W.F. Lai, Giulio Malavolta and Nicholas Spooner
    TCC 2022, Chicago, USA.
  9. Post-Quantum Zero Knowledge, Revisited (or: How to Do Quantum Rewinding Undetectably)
    Alex Lombardi, Fermi Ma and Nicholas Spooner.
    FOCS 2022, Denver, USA. QIP 2023, Ghent, Belgium.
  10. On Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments in Relativized Worlds
    Megan Chen, Alessandro Chiesa and Nicholas Spooner.
    Eurocrypt 2022, Trondheim, Norway.
  11. Post-Quantum Succinct Arguments: Breaking the Quantum Rewinding Barrier
    Alessandro Chiesa, Fermi Ma, Nicholas Spooner and Mark Zhandry.
    FOCS 2021 (invited to SICOMP special issue), online. QIP 2022, Pasadena, USA. QCrypt 2021, online. [talk by Fermi]
    Talk at Protocol Labs.
  12. Proof-Carrying Data without Succinct Arguments
    Benedikt Bünz, Alessandro Chiesa, William Lin, Pratyush Mishra and Nicholas Spooner.
    CRYPTO 2021, online. Charles River Crypto Day, online. [talk]
  13. Proof-Carrying Data from Accumulation Schemes
    Benedikt Bünz, Alessandro Chiesa, Pratyush Mishra and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2020, online.
  14. Fractal: Post-Quantum and Transparent Recursive Proofs from Holography
    Alessandro Chiesa, Dev Ojha and Nicholas Spooner.
    Eurocrypt 2020, online. [talk by Dev] SBC 2020, Stanford, USA. [talk]
  15. Efficient Post-quantum SNARKs for RSIS and RLWE and Their Applications to Privacy.
    Cecilia Boschini, Jan Camenisch, Max Ovsiankin and Nick Spooner.
    PQCrypto 2020. [talk by Cecilia]
  16. Succinct Arguments in the Quantum Random Oracle Model
    Alessandro Chiesa, Peter Manohar and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2019, Nuremberg, Germany. QIP 2020, Shenzhen, China. [talk]
  17. Linear-Size Constant-Query IOPs for Delegating Computation
    Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Lior Goldberg, Tom Gur, Michael Riabzev and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2019, Nuremberg, Germany.
  18. Aurora: Transparent Succinct Arguments for R1CS
    Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Michael Riabzev, Nicholas Spooner, Madars Virza and Nicholas P. Ward.
    Eurocrypt 2019, Darmstadt, Germany. 2nd ZKProof Standards Workshop, Berkeley, CA. [talk]
  19. Spatial Isolation Implies Zero Knowledge Even in a Quantum World
    Alessandro Chiesa, Michael A. Forbes, Tom Gur and Nicholas Spooner.
    FOCS 2018, Paris, France. [talk] QIP 2019, Boulder, CO, USA.
    (includes material from preprint A Zero Knowledge Sumcheck and its Applications.)
  20. Zero Knowledge Protocols from Succinct Constraint Detection
    Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Michael A. Forbes, Ariel Gabizon, Michael Riabzev and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2017, Baltimore MD, USA.
  21. Interactive Oracle Proofs with Constant Query Complexity and Rate
    Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa, Ariel Gabizon, Michael Riabzev and Nicholas Spooner.
    ICALP 2017, Warsaw, Poland.
  22. Interactive oracle proofs
    Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2016-B, Beijing, China.
  23. Fixed-Budget Performance of the (1+1)-EA on Linear Functions
    Johannes Lengler and Nicholas Spooner.
    ACM/SIGEVO Foundations of Genetic Algorithms XIII (FOGA 2015), Aberystwyth, UK.
Other recorded talks
Older preprints and reports
Service