Q: In a few words, please tell us a bit about yourself
A: I am currently an Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering and a father of three.
I was born in Jerusalem and grew up in a neighborhood not too far from Givat Ram – the campus where I now work. I attended “Leyada” high school, which is nearby the university, and later got my BSc in computer science and physics at the Hebrew University. I continued to advanced studies in Computer Science and got an MSc and a PhD at the Hebrew University (under the supervision of Prof. Jeffrey Rosenshein). My research was mainly in a sub area of Artificial Intelligence called “Multi-Agent Systems” and revolved around economic and incentive driven behavior of agents in large computer systems. I returned to the Hebrew University in 2012 after a two-year postdoc at Microsoft research in Silicon Valley. Two years ago I co-founded QED-it, a startup that deals with privacy in blockchain systems, where I now act (part time) as the chief scientist.
Q: What brought you into the academic world and what is the core of your research?
A: Two main things drew me to academia: Teaching, which I greatly enjoy, and the academic freedom to follow my own curiosity and define my own research questions.
My favorite parts of teaching are explaining complex topics in a simple and straightforward manner, and accompanying students in a deeply transformative and empowering journey of learning during which their view of the world is changed. I like the fact that teaching computer science gives them new superpower-like abilities to approach problems they could not tackle before.
As for research, the core of my research nowadays is mainly in the application domain of cryptocurrencies and blockchain systems. In this area and in other domains, I find that I often like to “backtrack” from some real-world problem that afflicts a computer system and consider how to better design the system. This makes me think more clearly about the goals of the system, and about the fundamental limitations that afflict it. This method of approaching problems in computer science often leads to deep theoretical questions, and I’ve found that I love this close interplay between theory and practice. Theoretical work offers beauty, deep understanding, and great potential improvements, while working on deployed systems provides a chance to have impact and keeps the theory grounded and relevant.
Within the domain of cryptocurrencies I’ve focused on questions relating to their scalability (how to make digital currencies work well on a planetary scale), their security (how might the system be attacked and how can we make it more robust?), and it’ s the underlying economic incentives (will users of the system behave how we expect them to? Can we incentivize good behavior?).
Q: Why did you choose this specific subject? Did your professional or personal background lead you in this direction? Did you ask yourself those questions in your previous positions?
A: Fairly early in my research career I figured out that I would probably enjoy research in most subfields of computer science. I was curious about science as a kid and loved to tinker and experiment on my own. I was drawn to computer science over other fields because I felt the field was “young” and that many of the open problems did not require many years of study in order to understand.
My current exploration into cryptocurrencies started during my postdoc as I was going through a phase of exploration and search for new research ideas. My PhD thesis revolved around the economic incentives of communication protocols, and so I was naturally intrigued when a friend sent me a link to an article on Bitcoin. In the article, Bitcoin was described as “The most dangerous open source project today.” I quickly started to explore the system, thinking that it was all “too good to be true.” I found a deep and fascinating domain in which there were many open and unanswered questions that also mattered a great deal to people outside of academic circles. After my first paper on Bitcoin was published, I received emails from Bitcoin developers and users that were excited to see research on the topic. The popularity of cryptocurrencies remains high nowadays (perhaps a bit too high for my taste), and academic work in the area is often read and discussed by practitioners outside of academia.
Q: What is the next phase in your professional/personal life?
A: I am at an interesting phase in my career where I balance between research, teaching, and a startup (not to mention family life with three young kids). Things are quite interesting, and I look forward to growing and improving in each one of these different roles: expanding my research group, driving towards more impact, and becoming a better teacher. I am fortunate to be in a position where I can choose the projects that I engage with and work on.
Q: What is your message for the public?
A: I think that the more I learn about innovation and computer systems the more I become concerned that we are too often “jumping the gun” to integrate them into our lives. Technological tools hold great promise to make our lives better, but we should always be weary of those who suggest that we swap an old time-tested method of doing things with a “clean slate” approach that promises to do better just because it relies on newer tech. I see these trends often in my research area, where people want to integrate blockchains into everything, even when it doesn’t make any sense, and in my teaching, where many are often blinded by the newest technological tool for teaching and don’ t consider all the consequences of its integration.