MC2 Undergraduate Researcher Wins Goldwater Scholarship
A University of Maryland undergraduate student in the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2) has been awarded a prestigious national scholarship for his research in cybersecurity and postquantum cryptography. Harikesh Kailad, a sophomore double majoring in computer science and mathematics, has been named a 2025 Goldwater Scholar by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. He is one of four UMD students recognized this year, joining 439 other scholars selected from a national pool of 1,350 nominees. The scholarship provides up to $7,500 per year for tuition, fees, books, and living expenses. Kailad has been involved in research at UMD since high school, and currently works with MC2 faculty Ian Miers, an assistant professor of computer science, on user privacy, and Dana Dachman-Soled, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, on cryptography. “I am extremely excited about recent advancements in security and cryptography and strongly interested in bringing anonymity and privacy to the web by using and improving privacy-enhancing technologies and answering questions about the security and efficiency of such systems,” says Kailad. With Miers, he is developing privacy-preserving systems for online forums that allow moderation while protecting user anonymity—helping to prevent spam and abuse. He created a flexible framework that platforms like Wikipedia and Reddit can adopt. He is also exploring multiparty computation for anonymous private state, a technique that enables multiple parties to compute a shared result without revealing their individual data. “Hari has shown consistent initiative, pushing himself in coursework, research, and teaching,” says Miers. “As a freshman, he taught a student-led class on binary exploitation with an ambitious plan to go beyond even upper-level security courses. At the same time, he completed an independent study with me on zero-knowledge proofs, which resulted in a paper set to appear at USENIX Security 2025, a top-tier venue in computer security research.” Kailad collaborates with Dachman-Soled on the security of postquantum cryptosystems, an area of increasing importance as quantum computing threatens current encryption methods. His research focuses on Kyber, a cryptosystem selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology for postquantum encryption. He developed an attack that transforms side-channel information leaks into algebraic data, which can then be used to compromise secret keys. Beyond research, Kailad is deeply involved in UMD’s cybersecurity community. He serves as president of the Cybersecurity Club, has designed and taught two student-initiated courses, co-founded a theoretical computer science reading group, and competes internationally as part of a top-ranking Capture the Flag team. He has also received a CMNS Alumni Network Summer Research Award and a Maryland Cybersecurity Center Travel Grant. After graduation, Kailad plans to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science, focusing on cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies. —This story was adapted from an article that appeared in Maryland Today written by Abby Robinson
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