IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
2–5 May 2022 // Virtual Conference

Committee

Program Chairs

Peter Robinson is a technical director and applied cryptographer working in ConsenSys Software's R&D group on Crosschain and Bridges technologies. He has twenty-three granted patents in fields ranging from distributed computing, cryptography, blockchain, and virtualisation to graphical password design. He holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering and a Masters of Business Administration from Queensland University of Technology, a Masters of Telecommunications Engineering from University of Wollongong, is a graduate of the International Space University, and is currently completing a PhD at University of Queensland part-time with the thesis topic, Cross-Blockchain Communications. Peter is co-chair of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance's Crosschain Interoperability Task Force.

Email: peter.robinson@consensys.net
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QHvuxTYAAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-robinson-98a0061
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drinkcoffee2010
GitHub: https://github.com/drinkcoffee

 

Dr Stefan Schulte is a Professor at Hamburg University of Technology, where he leads the Institute of Data Engineering. His research interests span the areas of data engineering, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, and the application of blockchain technologies in the Internet of Things, especially with regard to blockchain interoperability. He is the leader of the Christian Doppler Laboratory "Blockchain Technologies for the Internet of Things" www.cdl-bot.at. Findings from his research have been published in more than 100 refereed scholarly publications. Together with his co-authors, he won the Best Paper Award at the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=jYD7x3gAAAAJ
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-schulte-71ba6812/

 

Dr Sandra Johnson is a Senior Researcher at ConsenSys Software and has a PhD in Environmental Statistics. She is a visiting fellow at School of Mathematics, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane. Her research interests include statistical modelling and incentive systems analysis. Before joining ConsenSys she worked as a data scientist, researcher and sessional academic at QUT, and software engineer. She enjoys applying her wide range of experiences to research within the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem.

 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1gsap5oAAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandjohnson/

 

Academic Track

Dr Ali Dorri is a Research Fellow at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. He was also a Postgraduate research student at CSIRO, Australia. His Ph.D. theses received UNSW Dean's Award for Outstanding PhD Theses. He was ranked among the top 1% scientists globally for the citation impact in the 2020 published by Stanford University. He is the lead author of a book titled "blockchain for cyberphysical systems" published by ArtechHouse 2020. He has published over 40 papers which collectively received over 4100 citations with h-index of 19. Ali served on the organising committee of several conferences including ICBC, BCCA, and SLDT and delivered several talks and tutorials. His research interest includes blockchain, cyber security, IoT, privacy, and smart grid.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pxA8dzYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-dorri/

 

Dr Joanne Fuller is a Senior Researcher at ConsenSys Software and has a PhD in Cryptography. Her research interests include formal methods, cryptography and data science. Before joining ConsenSys Joanne worked for many years as an academic at QUT and then for a short period as a consultant data scientist. Joanne is part of the Trustworthy Smart Contracts Team at ConsenSys and in 2021 was part of the team to formally verify the Phase 0 Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain reference implementation in Dafny.

 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=aCp_g7IAAAAJ
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanne-fuller-phd-04955b1a/

 

Dr Christian Vecchiola is a member of engineering team with ANZx. His interests focus on distributing computing technologies and cloud application development. Prior to join ANZx, Christian was with IBM Research - Australia holding the position of Senior Research Staff Member and Technical leader. In the last for years of his tenure in IBM he specialised in Blockchain technologies and financial services, by developing a range of distributed ledger based solutions that range from innovative and green field projects to production platforms.
Prior to joining IBM Christian was Research Fellow in Grid and Cloud Computing Systems at the University of Melbourne, under the direction of Prof. Rajkumar Buyya. Within that role, he collaborated he studied patterns and good practices for scientific computing in the cloud and led the design and development of the Aneka Cloud Computing Programming Platform.
He is co-author of "Mastering Cloud Computing: Foundations and Applications Programming" (Morgan Kaufmann, ISBN-13: 978-0124114548) and several publications in top tier journals and conferences in the field of distributed and cloud computing. Christian still actively contributes to the academic community by acting as program committee member and reviewer for conferences and journals such as Software Practice and Experience (SPE), Transactions on Service Computing (TSC), Future Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) and several others.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=C9YzE4wAAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianvecchiola/

 

Dr Raghavendra Ramesh completed his PhD from Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, in the area of model-checking information flow security properties. His research interests mainly include formal verification, program analysis, distributed systems, cryptography and interoperable blockchains. He is currently working as a Senior Researcher at SupraOracles.

 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JZik0U0AAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raghavendra-ramesh-0a418051/

 

Dr Ermyas Abebe is currently a Senior Researcher at Consensys working on cross-chain communications. Before joining ConsenSys, he was a Senior Research Staff Member and Manager at IBM Research, where he led a team of researchers and engineers that explored the potential of Distributed Ledger Technologies to transform industries, economies and governments. He worked with businesses and governments across different geographies to conceive and build blockchain-based solutions for scenarios such as cross-border payments, trade finance, trade logistics and decentralised identity. His primary research focus has been to advance the state of blockchain technologies across the dimensions of scalability and interoperability. He co-led the creation of Hyperledger Weaver, which is a decentralised interoperability protocol for enterprise blockchains. Ermyas has published numerous academic papers and filed over 30 patents.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=PMmkdOIAAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/ermyas-abebe-3a811220
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ermyasteshome
GitHub: https://github.com/ermyas

 

Dr Shoufeng Cao is the lead research fellow at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He received his PhD from The University of Queensland (UQ). His research interests include digital innovation, blockchain and IoT applications in supply chains, and smart trade systems in the agri-food industry. He had two previous postdoctoral fellowship appointments at UQ and QUT that were funded by industry-led CRCs, including the CRC for Developing Northern Australia and the Food Agility CRC. With the Food Agility CRC funded Export Smart Contract Project, Shoufeng, together with his team, won two Good Design Australia Awards for their design-led innovative blockchain solutions in the Australia's beef industry.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=HdNOsM0AAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shoufeng-cao-82b654118/

 

Dr Naipeng Dong is lecturer at UQ Cyber Security, School of Information Technology & Electrical Engineering, the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She received her PhD from University of Luxembourg. Before joining UQ, she was a Research Fellow at School of Computing, National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on automatic formal verification of security and privacy in cryptographic protocols, Android applications and blockchain systems. She has worked on developing efficient automatic formal verification techniques, particularly on model checking and attacker knowledge reasoning, analysis and development of cryptographic systems, BAR (Byzantine-Altruistic-Rational) systems, smart contracts, and deep learning models.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZU5ZUnAAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naipeng-dong-ab082a166/

 

Dr Franck Cassez's research interests are broadly in formal methods, more specifically automated verification techniques such as software verification and model-checking, static analysis. He has published more than 80 research papers in peer-reviewed journals & conferences, 1 US patent and contributed verification tools and software packages.
Before joining ConsenSys, Franck worked as a research scientist/academic for 25 years, at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, France), National ICT Australia (NICTA now DATA61, Sydney AU) and Macquarie University (Sydney AU). He is a Marie Curie Fellow (2008) and a conjoint Associate Professor at Macquarie University, Sydney.

 

WebSite: https://franck44.github.io/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=raKoMyIAAAAJ&hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franck-cassez-b775807/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/franckDownunder
GitHub: https://github.com/franck44

 

Dr Jiangshan Yu is an ARC DECRA Fellow, Senior Lecturer (~US Associate Professor), and Associate Director (Research) at Monash Blockchain Technology Centre, Monash University. Jiangshan’s research interests are in the broad area of cybersecurity and applied cryptography, with a current focus on blockchain systems. He is a recipient of several exclusive and competitive awards, including Discovery Early Career Researcher Award by Australian Research Council (2021), the IBM Academic Award (2020), and Dean’s Research Impact Award at Monash University (2019). He has served as a PC member for several flagship conferences such as DSN, ICDCS, FC, AFT, ICBC, and Blockchain.

 

WebSite: https://www.jiangshanyu.com
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-1C1IIcAAAAJ&en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiangshan-yu-188ba230

 

Thanh-Hai Tran is an applied researcher at ConsenSys. His research focuses on formal methods, distributed algorithms, and blockchains. Before joining ConsenSys, he did his Ph.D. in formal verification of distributed algorithms at TU Wien. Together with his co-authors, he won the best paper award at FORTE 2021 - the 41st International Conference on Formal Techniques for Distributed Objects, Components, and Systems. In addition, he worked with researchers from INRIA Nancy and TU Wien to develop the model checker APALACHE for the specification language TLA+.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=2JrhrNcAAAAJ
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thanh-hai-tran/

 

Rafael Belchior Researcher at INESC-ID and Ph.D. student at Técnico Lisboa, studying the intersection of blockchain interoperability and security. He participates in the Internet Engineering Task Force and Hyperledger Cactus, the most recent Hyperledger project dedicated to blockchain interoperability. Participates in Hyperledger as a summer mentor. Participated in the European projects Qualichain, and DE4A.
He worked at the Portuguese government, and Linux Foundation as a Blockchain Engineer. He is a lecturer at Técnico Lisboa since 2018 (Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence).

WebSite: https://rafaelapb.github.io/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelpbelchior/

 

Babu Pillai is a PhD candidate at the School of Information and Communication Technology at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. His current research relates to Cross-chain Technology that enables interoperability between distributed ledger systems such as blockchain. In 2017, Mr Pillai obtained his Master's degree in Information Technology from Griffith University. Prior to that, Mr Pillai worked as an Engineering Professional in the building industry with the design team, where his main purpose was to merge engineering design and technology to create efficient and collaborative design processes. Mr Pillai received his technical qualification in Civil Engineering from India in 1995 and has worked in Australia, India and the Middle East.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Xtg1XHIAAAAJ
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/babu-pillai-08042114

 

Zhenyang Shi is a current research engineer working in the Protocol R&D Group of Consensys. He graduated from the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2019 with a first class honours majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering. From 2017 to 2019, he was a member of the UQ’s EAIT Scholars as an Hawken Scholar. His interests include Crosschain transactions, Stateless Ethereum, Layer 2 scaling, InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Filecoin Retrieval System.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhenyang-shi-13b882b7/
GitHub: https://github.com/wcgcyx

 

Applications of Technology Track

Dr Weijia Zhang is the Vice President of Engineering at Wanchain and Regional Head China for the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. He is co-chair of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance's Crosschain Interoperability Task Force.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=UJyzqCwAAAAJ
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weijia-zhang-013b84153/

 

Angela Potter is a Lead Product Manager at ConsenSys, focused on crosschain protocols. Previously she was a Director of Product Management at Salesforce working on the Salesforce mobile app. She has a background in UX design and web development.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelacbpotter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/takehypotenuses
GitHub: https://github.com/angelapotter

 

Aiman Baharna is the Head of Engineering at Clearmatics, building blockchain protocols and platforms for decentralized markets. He has nearly two decades of technology experience including software engineering for distributed and mission-critical systems in finance and other industries.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aimanbaharna/

 

Peter Somogyvari is a technology architect manager at Accenture and a maintainer of Hyperledger Cactus, an open-source, pluggable enterprise-grade framework to transact on multiple distributed ledgers without introducing yet another competing blockchain.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-somogyvari/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterMetz_
GitHub: https://github.com/petermetz/

 

Coenie Beyers holds an Msc Eng (Cum Laude) from Stellenbosch University and is an experienced software engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software and banking industries. He started getting involved with blockchain technology from 2013 and has been involved with designing and building multiple blockchain projects since 2015. He fulfilled the role of Ethereum expert during project Ubin phase 2 at the MAS and led the overall technical design and implementation for a confidential and distributed RTGS system for project Khokha for the SARB.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coeniebeyers/

Patrons