Elizabeth C. Crites

I am a Research Scientist in Cryptography at Web3 Foundation. Formerly, I was a Research Associate at The University of Edinburgh and Input Output (IOG/IOHK), working with Aggelos Kiayias and Markulf Kohlweiss, and at University College London (UCL), working with Sarah Meiklejohn. I earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Brown University in 2019 under the supervision of Anna Lysyanskaya.

Currently, my main area of research is threshold cryptography. My contributions in this area include the development of novel multi-signature and threshold signature schemes, such as Sparkle (CRYPTO’23, Best Early Career Paper Award), Snowblind (CRYPTO’23), FROST2 (CRYPTO’22), TSPS (ASIACRYPT'23), SpeedyMuSig, and SimpleMuSig. In addition to their use in cryptocurrencies, such as Polkadot, Bitcoin, and Zcash, multi-party signatures are also the subject of an upcoming call from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Before entering the field of cryptography in 2016, I studied partial differential equations under the supervision of Richard S. Hamilton and Michael I. Weinstein and earned an M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University. I also hold a B.Sc. in Honours Mathematics from The University of Western Ontario.