I am a final year PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University, where I am fortunate to have Elaine Shi as my advsior. Previously, I received MS in Information Security in 2021 from Carnegie Mellon University where I was also advised by Elaine. Even before, I received B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2018 from IIT Kanpur.

My research interests are in Cryptography and Blockchains. I develop new techniques for functional encryption and explores its applications to decentralized systems, with the goal of making advanced cryptographic tools practical for real-world use. My work so far builds (i) new functional encryption schemes that are both efficient and provably secure, and (ii) applications of functional encryption to decentralized access control, fair exchange and anonymous communication. Ultimately, I aim to design expressive, efficient, and privacy-preserving systems that bridge the gap between provable security and real-world deployment.

You can find my CV here. Contact: nikhilvanjani61 [at] gmail.com.

NEWS

• Our work on broadening functionality and improving efficiency of Functional Adaptor Signatures got accepted to S&P (Oakland)‘26
• Our work on showing fully adaptive security of the classic Lewko-Waters MA-ABE got accepted to Asiacrypt'25
• Research Internship at NTT Research during Summer'25
• Research Internship at 0xPARC Foundation during Spring'25
• Our work on enabling functional fair exchange via Functional Adaptor Signatures got accepted to CCS'24
• Research Internship at NTT Research during Summer'24