I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Warwick, and a member of the Theory and Foundations group. I am a founding member of Warwick Quantum.
I will join Cornell University as an assistant professor in August 2024. For the academic year 2023-24 I will be a visiting assistant professor at NYU.
I am looking for students and postdocs interested in quantum computing, cryptography, or probabilistic proof systems. If that's you, please send me an e-mail!
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.
Previously, 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
Publications
  1. On the Necessity of Collapsing for Quantum and Post-Quantum Commitments
    Marcel Dall'Agnol and Nicholas Spooner
    Accepted to QCW 2022, QIP 2023 (poster) and TQC 2023 (Outstanding Paper Prize).
  2. Speed-Stacking: Fast Sublinear Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Disjunctions
    Aarushi Goel, Mathias Hall-Andersen, Gabriel Kaptchuk and Nicholas Spooner
    Eurocrypt 2023, Lyon, France.
  3. Proof-Carrying Data From Arithmetized Random Oracles
    Megan Chen, Alessandro Chiesa, Tom Gur, Jack O'Connor and Nicholas Spooner
    Eurocrypt 2023, Lyon, France.
  4. The Superlinearity Problem in Post-Quantum Blockchains
    Sunoo Park and Nicholas Spooner
    Financial Cryptography (FC) 2023, Bol, Croatia.
  5. Quantum Rewinding for Many-Round Protocols
    Russell W.F. Lai, Giulio Malavolta and Nicholas Spooner
    TCC 2022, Chicago, USA.
  6. 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.
  7. On Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments in Relativized Worlds
    Megan Chen, Alessandro Chiesa and Nicholas Spooner.
    Eurocrypt 2022, Trondheim, Norway.
  8. 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 Ma]
    Talk at Protocol Labs.
  9. 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]
  10. Proof-Carrying Data from Accumulation Schemes
    Benedikt Bünz, Alessandro Chiesa, Pratyush Mishra and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2020, online.
  11. Fractal: Post-Quantum and Transparent Recursive Proofs from Holography
    Alessandro Chiesa, Dev Ojha and Nicholas Spooner.
    Eurocrypt 2020, online. [talk by Dev Ojha] SBC 2020, Stanford, USA. [talk]
  12. 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 Boschini]
  13. Succinct Arguments in the Quantum Random Oracle Model
    Alessandro Chiesa, Peter Manohar and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2019, Nuremberg, Germany. QIP 2020, Shenzhen, China. [talk]
  14. 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.
  15. 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]
  16. 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.)
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. Interactive oracle proofs
    Eli Ben-Sasson, Alessandro Chiesa and Nicholas Spooner.
    TCC 2016-B, Beijing, China.
  20. 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