Jess Woods
I'm a PhD student in Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Sebastian Angel in the Security and Privacy Lab (within the Distributed Systems Lab). I'm interested in applied cryptography and it's crossover with programming languages. My recent work has been in compilers for zero-knowledge proofs. I'm also passionate about making math/computer science education better and more accessible.
I'm happy to talk about any of my papers/accompanying code - especially if you are using my arithemtic circuit code or trying to build/integrate similar code into your project.
he/him | woodsjk (at) seas.upenn.edu | GitHub | LinkedIn | CV
Teaching
College Algebra, Instructor, Prison Teaching Initiative, Princeton, NJ
Fall 2024
High School Java, Instructor, Heights, Philadelphia, PA
Summer 2021, Summer 2024
Undergraduate Research in Cryptography, Graduate Research Mentor, UPenn
Spring 2024
Computer and Network Security, Head TA & Lecturer, UPenn
Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Summer 2022, Fall 2023
TA Award for Excellence (Student Nominated)
Discrete Math, TA & Lecturer, UNC
Fall 2018, Spring 2019
K-12 Math, Instructor, Reading Writing Arithmetic Center, Chapel Hill, NC
Summer 2018
Education
BS, Computer Science & BA, Studio Art, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2019
Highest Distinction
Publications
Reef: Fast Succinct Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge Regex Proofs
with* Sebastian Angel, Eleftherios Ioannidis, Elizabeth Margolin, Srinath Setty
Flamingo: Multi-Round Single-Server Secure Aggregation with Applications to Private Federated Learning
Yiping Ma, Jess Woods, Sebastian Angel, Antigoni Polychroniadou, Tal Rabin
paper @ S&P 2023 (Oakland) | code
Efficient Representation of Numerical Optimization Problems for SNARKs
with* Sebastian Angel, Andrew J. Blumberg, Eleftherios Ioannidis
OpenMDlr: Parallel, Open-source Tools for General Protein Structure Modeling and Refinement from Pairwise Distances
Russell B. Davidson, Jess Woods, T. Chad Effler, Mathialakan Thavappiragasam, Julie C. Mitchell, Jerry M. Parks, Ada Sedova
Modeling protein structures from predicted contacts with modern molecular dynamics potentials: accuracy, sensitivity, and refinement
Russell B. Davidson, Mathialakan Thavappiragasam, T. Chad Effler, Jess Woods, Dwayne A. Elias, Jerry M. Parks, Ada Sedova
paper @ ACM-BCB 2021 | code
*authors ordered alphabetically
Other Research
Vulnerability testing for post quantum lattice cryptography implementations
Jess Woods, Jennifer Cordaro
Internal SNL Work, 2022
poster @ SNL | code
Programming models for fully homomorphic encryption on a supercomputer
Jess Woods, Ada Sedova, Oscar Hernandez
ORNL Student Project, 2020
talk @ P3HPC 2020 | ignite talk, python talk, poster @ ORNL | c++ code | julia code | python code
Using Python for Improved Productivity in HPC and Data Science Applications: the Time is Now,
Jess Woods, Matthew Baker, Mathialakan Thavappiragasam, Ada Sedova, Oscar Hernandez, Vivek Sarkar
Professional Experience
Computer Security Consultant @ EcoGather, Sterling College, VT
July 2023, July 2024
Research Internship @ Center for Cyber Defenders, Sandia National Laboratories
PIs: Jennifer Cordaro, Chris Jenkins, Benjamin Jackson
May 2022 - September 2023
Thunderbird Kudos Award
Research Internship @ Center for Molecular Biophysics, Advanced Computing System Research, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
PIs: Oscar Hernandez, Ada Sedova
June 2019 - July 2020
Fun Stuff
I like camping, painting, baseball, and programming 80s-style text-based adventure games. Send me an email if you want to play a weird text adventure game that teaches you cryptography. I'm also the barber third of Albuquerque's One Stop Shop.