Mayank Varia

Mayank Varia is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, Co-Director of the Center for Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security (RISCS), and a founding member of the Cyber Security, Law, and Society Alliance (Cyber Alliance).  Varia also served on the U.S. Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building and chairs the legal subtask group of the United Nations Privacy Preserving Techniques Task Team to promote the use of cryptographically protected data analysis and shape the laws and policies surrounding its use.

Varia’s research focuses on theoretical and applied cryptography, and its applications throughout and beyond computing & data sciences. His research interests include: data analysis for social good, the social and legal impact of cryptography, secure computing and search, formal analysis of systems, program obfuscation, and privacy and inference. He explores the computational and social aspects of cryptography, and his work has been featured in media outlets like CNET, The Hill, and ZDNet. His designs for accessible, equitable, and socially-responsible data analysis have been used to determine the gender wage gap, subcontracting to minority-owned businesses, and repeat offenders of sexual assault inspired by the #MeToo movement.

Prior to joining BU, Varia was at MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he designed and evaluated high performance privacy-enhancing data search technology; created information theoretic metrics to quantify privacy; and developed algorithms to capture linguistic provenance automatically. He received a PhD in mathematics from MIT in 2010.

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