Institutes: Stanford University

Email: wdnguyen {at} cs (dot) stanford [dot] edu

About Me

I’m a fifth-year CS PhD student (advised by Dan Boneh) and a member of the Applied Cryptography Group.
My research is on applied cryptography. I am concerned about the concrete efficiency and post-quantum security of zero-knowledge proof systems (zk-SNARKs). Recently, I have been focusing on folding schemes and related primitives. As an undergrad, I was a member of the Stanford Empirical Research Group advised by Zakir Durumeric. I also briefly worked with Marco Patrignani on secure compilation.

Here is my CV-2025.

Teaching & Mentorship

CS355: Topics in Cryptography Instructor (2022, 2023, 2024)

IPS/INTLPOL268: Hacklab (TA 2018, Head TA 2019)

I’ve had the privilege of working with the following amazing students.

  • Zijing “Christie” Di (Stanford MS -> EPFL PhD)
  • Lucas Xia (Stanford MS -> Aztec -> Deciding between PhD programs!)
  • Bharath Namboothiry (Stanford BS -> UPenn PhD)
  • Ihyun Nam (Stanford BS -> Deciding between PhD programs!)
  • Uma Dayal (Stanford BS -> Succinct)
  • Anthony Argyropoulos (Stanford BS -> Stanford MS)
  • Madeleine Charity (Stanford BS -> Privy)