Our Expert Team
Leadership
Dr Ali El Kaafarani
Founder & CEO
Dr Ali El Kaafarani
Founder & CEO
CEO, Founder and Researcher at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, where he co-founded the cryptography group when he joined in 2015. Prior to that, Dr El Kaafarani was a Research Engineer at the Cloud and Cybersecurity team at HP Labs. He holds a PhD in cryptography from the University of Bath, UK.
Ben Packman
SVP Strategy
Ben Packman
SVP Strategy
A strategic leader and natural problem solver with a proven track record of delivering innovative, creative and successful commercialisation across a diverse range of business areas, both domestically and internationally. 30yrs experience in Technology, Healthcare, Media, Telecommunications, B2B and B2C. In recent years has worked with and advised multiple tech startup / scale-up businesses including PQShield, Navenio, Vivacity, ThoughtRiver, CareLineLive and Kinetik Wellbeing to name but a few.
Michael Vroobel
VP Operations
Michael Vroobel
VP Operations
Michael has 10 years' experience building and leading operations functions in high growth technology companies - most recently with fintech scaleups TrueLayer and MarketFinance. Michael has an MEng in Electrical & Information Sciences from University of Cambridge.
Graeme Hickey
VP Engineering
Graeme Hickey
VP Engineering
Graeme has over 25 years experience in the semiconductor Industry creating cryptographic IP and security subsystems for secure products.
Formerly of NXP Semiconductor, he was Senior Manager of the Secure Hardware Subsystems group responsible for developing security and cryptographic solutions for an expansive range of business lines.
Dr Axel Y. Poschmann
Head of Product Innovation and Security
Dr Axel Y. Poschmann
Head of Product Innovation and Security
Dr Axel Y. Poschmann has 15+ years of global work experience across Asia, Europe, US, and the Middle East in industry and academia. A resilient leader with deep technical understanding, business acumen, and an exceptionally high impact innovation track record. Demonstrated history in developing and executing business change strategies from vision creation to achieving product-market-fit. He holds a PhD in electrical engineering and an Executive MBA from INSEAD.
Advisory Board
Prof Chris Peikert
Advisor
Prof Chris Peikert
Advisor
Professor of Cryptography at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), USA.
Prof Peter Schwabe
Advisor
Prof Peter Schwabe
Advisor
Professor of Computer Security at Radboud University, The Netherlands.
Prof Artur Ekert
Advisor
Prof Artur Ekert
Advisor
Professorial Fellow in Quantum Physics and Cryptography at University of Oxford and Fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Science.
Our Technical Team
Dr Thomas Prest
Lead Cryptography Researcher
Dr Thomas Prest
Lead Cryptography Researcher
Dr Prest is a Co-submitter of FALCON, a NIST PQC finalist. He leads the Advanced Cryptography Protocols team at PQShield. He holds a PhD degree from ENS Paris.
Dr Markku Saarinen
Staff Cryptography Architect
Dr Markku Saarinen
Staff Cryptography Architect
Dr Saarinen has over 20yrs info security industry and cryptography research experience. He holds a PhD in Information Security (Cryptanalysis) from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Kris Kwiatkowski
Staff Cryptography Architect
Kris Kwiatkowski
Staff Cryptography Architect
Kris is a Cryptography Engineer who focuses on problems at the intersection of cryptographic research, implementation and deployment. He leads our Server Technology and Mobile team. His career spans over 15yrs, covering classical and post-quantum cryptography, from small embedded TEEs to large, distributed backend systems.
Dr Luke Mather
Principal Cryptography Software Engineer
Dr Luke Mather
Principal Cryptography Software Engineer
Dr Mather holds a PhD in Cryptanalysis from the University of Bristol, UK. His interests include side-channel analysis and applied cryptography, with a focus on secure and efficient implementations of cryptographic protocols and primitives.
Oussama Danba
Senior Cryptography Firmware Engineer
Oussama Danba
Senior Cryptography Firmware Engineer
Oussama is a Co-submitter of NTRU, a NIST PQC finalist. He holds a Masters degree in Cryptography Engineering from Radboud University.
Dr Rafael del Pino
Senior Cryptography Researcher
Dr Rafael del Pino
Senior Cryptography Researcher
Dr del Pino holds a PhD in Lattice-based Cryptography from ENS Paris / IBM Zurich. His interest include Zero-Knowledge proofs, End-to-end Encryption, FHE, and advanced cryptographic protocols in general.
Dr Pedro Massolino
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Dr Pedro Massolino
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Pedro is an experienced hardware engineer, finalising his dissertation for a PhD in Hardware Security that he pursued at Radboud University. He is a co-author of two semi-finalists at the Lightweight Cryptography NIST Standardisation process. He holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of São Paulo.
Dr Shuichi Katsumata
Lead Cryptography Researcher
Dr Shuichi Katsumata
Lead Cryptography Researcher
Shuichi is a researcher specializing in the construction and security analysis of cryptographic primitives/protocols. Prior to that, he was a senior researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo and was selected for MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 Japan 2022.
Ben Marshall
Lead Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Ben Marshall
Lead Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Ben's background is in CPU design and verification. He also has experience in side-channel attacks and countermeasures for hardware and software, including CPU co-design for secure and efficient cryptographic processing. Ben is also the editor of the official RISC-V cryptographic extension specifications. He holds a MEng in Computer Science and Electronics from the University of Bristol.
Dr Federico Pintore
Cryptography Research Consultant
Dr Federico Pintore
Cryptography Research Consultant
Dr Federico Pintore joins us from University of Bari, Italy.
Dr Daniel Page
Hardware Cryptography Engineering Consultant
Dr Daniel Page
Hardware Cryptography Engineering Consultant
Dr Daniel Page is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Bristol, specialising in Cryptography and Information Security.
San Chi-Leung
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
San Chi-Leung
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
San is Hardware Engineer who is focused on the end-to-end implementation of hardware IP... from algorithm to mass production
He joined us from Huawei with a career spanning 16 years covering: xDSL communication chipsets, AI accelerator IP and CPU core IP development - from the role of designer, project manager and research manager.
Neha Jain
Senior Cryptography Verification Engineer
Neha Jain
Senior Cryptography Verification Engineer
Neha is focusing on digital verification of PQShield IPs. She joins us from Allegro Microsystems and has been involved in functional verification of various IPs and SoC of automotive and audio products over the past 15 years, with extensive experience in verification planning and methodologies like UVM.
Gabriel Tarsa
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Gabriel Tarsa
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Gabriel has over 10 years experience at companies like Synopsis and NXP in ASIC Digital Design & Verification, including 5 years in Hardware Security, having worked on chips up to Common Criteria certification level and the implementation of both symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic hardware IPs, with built-in Side Channel and Fault Attack countermeasures.
Kevin Law
Senior Cryptography Algorithms Engineer
Kevin Law
Senior Cryptography Algorithms Engineer
Kevin has over 16 years experience in the ASIC industry covering various fields, including xDSL, WiFi, WiMAX, G.hn, autonomous driving and AI, with roles ranging from algorithm designer to system architect. Before joining us, he was a principal engineer at Huawei focused on the software-hardware performance co-optimization of AI acceleration IP and CPU core IP.
Graeme Hickey
VP Engineering
Graeme Hickey
VP Engineering
Graeme has over 25 years experience in the semiconductor Industry creating cryptographic IP and security subsystems for secure products.
Formerly of NXP Semiconductor, he was Senior Manager of the Secure Hardware Subsystems group responsible for developing security and cryptographic solutions for an expansive range of business lines.
Dr Dusan Bozilov
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Dr Dusan Bozilov
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Dusan has strong theoretical and practical experience with secure hardware design over the last 6 years, having worked closely with the top academic and industry talent at KU Leuven and NXP semiconductors, specializing in side-channel and fault attack resistant hardware implementations of various symmetric and asymmetric crypto algorithms.
Sam Agnew
Infrastructure Engineer
Sam Agnew
Infrastructure Engineer
Sam has over 25 years experience with UNIX systems including various Linux flavours, BSD flavours and Mac OS X. Comfortable with HPC and enterprise computing environments. Solution oriented.
Lalit Miyan
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Lalit Miyan
Senior Cryptography Hardware Engineer
Lalit comes with 23 years’ experience in ASIC Design for MCU’s for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)/General Purpose, Optogenetics, Ultra Wide Band (UWB), Memory Expander, High end Enterprise Networking Router Switches, Test Chips, etc. Formerly contributed to Avago Technologies, NXP Semiconductors, Cadence Design Systems and Newcastle University success's with different roles like I.C. Design Engineer, Lead to Manager to Researcher.
Anupam Chahar
Lead Cryptography Firmware Engineer
Anupam Chahar
Lead Cryptography Firmware Engineer
Anupam comes with a strong background in Embedded Systems. He has contributed to the development of several ASIC platforms, including: Neuromorphic chip for Edge AI Applications, Image pipeline for Camera Sub-System, SRAM PUF RoT for Hardware Security etc. He has a good experience with HW/SW Co-designing. He is joining us from GrAI Matter Labs where he worked as a Principal SW/Compiler Engineer.
John Waymont
Principal Technical Project Manager
John Waymont
Principal Technical Project Manager
John is an Engineering Project Manager with experience leading multi-disciplinary and international teams through operational, R&D, and complex ASIC projects. Formerly working with Sondrel in turnkey ASIC solutions and Imagination Technologies with roles in ASIC development and IP software. He holds an MEng in Electronic Systems Engineering from the University of Manchester and is a Member of the IET, a Chartered Engineer, and a Registered European Engineer.
Fraser Winterborn
Principal Security Software Engineer
Fraser Winterborn
Principal Security Software Engineer
Fraser has over 13 years experience in the information security industry, with a background in design and development of secure software and the security assessment of a wide range of applications and network infrastructures. He previously worked at BlackBerry, where his focus was on research and product security. Fraser holds a MEng in Computer Systems and Software Engineering from the University of York.
Anand Jose
Cryptography Verification Engineer
Anand Jose
Cryptography Verification Engineer
Anand is a design verification engineer with 5 years of experience in verification of subsystems and SoC for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, automotive and consumer electronic chips. he joins us from Wipro and holds MSc in Microelectronics System Design from University of Southampton.
Dr Niels Samwel
SCA Analyst / Infrastructure Engineer
Dr Niels Samwel
SCA Analyst / Infrastructure Engineer
Niels is finalizing his dissertation for a PhD in Hardware security at the Radboud University. His interests include side-channel analysis, applied cryptography and efficient implementations. He holds a Masters degree in security from Radboud University.
Dr Timo Zijlstra
SCA Analyst
Dr Timo Zijlstra
SCA Analyst
Timo worked on secure implementations of Lattice Cryptography during his PhD. He joins us from SERMA Safety & Security where he was a SCA security evaluator.
Dr Jose Bermudo Mera
Cryptography Hardware Design Engineer
Dr Jose Bermudo Mera
Cryptography Hardware Design Engineer
Jose is a co-submitter of Saber, a NIST PQC finalist. He joins PQShield after more than 6 years of experience in research environments. His expertise includes implementation of cryptography, embedded systems and digital design. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from KU Leuven.
Anshul Sharma
Senior Cryptography Verification Engineer
Anshul Sharma
Senior Cryptography Verification Engineer
Anshul has 12 years of industry experience & is an expert in Functional Verification using SV UVM. He previously worked for Qualcomm in their Hexagon DSP team and before that with several other IP development and ARM subsystem project groups.
Matthew Stubbs
Senior Technical Author
Matthew Stubbs
Senior Technical Author
Matt is a documentation expert and technical author with a background in optical physics and engineering. With a range of experience in automotive, education, and cyber security, Matt has over 15 years' experience designing and curating technical documentation in a variety of contexts.
Krystian Krakowiak
Senior Cryptography Firmware Engineer
Krystian Krakowiak
Senior Cryptography Firmware Engineer
Krystian is a Firmware engineer with over 9 years of experience in development of cryptographic subsystems based on ARM/RISC-V architectures. Former employee of Globallogic and subcontractor of NXP Semiconductors, he mainly specialized in Elliptic-curve cryptography resistant against side-channel and fault attacks.
Dr Mary Maller
Cryptography Research Consultant
Dr Mary Maller
Cryptography Research Consultant
Mary Maller is a cryptography researcher specializing in zero-knowledge proofs; trusted setups; and threshold cryptography. She holds a PhD in cryptography from University College London.
Dr Michael Hutter
Staff Cryptography Architect
Dr Michael Hutter
Staff Cryptography Architect
Mike has over 15 years experience in secure hardware design. Formerly he was working as a Senior Principal Engineer at Rambus Cryptography Research division (CRI) from 2012-2022. He received a Venia Docendi (Habilitation) in 2016 and a PhD in Hardware Security in 2014 from Graz University of Technology. He has (co-)authored 60+ conference and journal publications in cryptography and IT security.
Dr Dur E Shahwar Kundi
Cryptography Architect
Dr Dur E Shahwar Kundi
Cryptography Architect
Dr Kundi has 12 years of experience in Hardware security, designing hardware architectures and implementing efficient designs for Symmetric-key Cryptography and Hash, including 4 years of expertise in Post-quantum Cryptography field. She is joining us from the PQC Research Group at CSIT, a division of ECIT Global Research Institute of Queen's University, Belfast, having worked previously on PQC during her Postdoctoral Fellowship at the NUAA, China
Errol Sloman
Software Development Manager
Errol Sloman
Software Development Manager
Errol has many years experience of designing, developing and delivering software. He has hands-on experience in the military, avionics, satellite and security domains. As a manager he has supported, grown and inspired teams of developers at Thales, Viasat and Smiths.
Dr Thomas Espitau
Senior Cryptography Researcher
Dr Thomas Espitau
Senior Cryptography Researcher
Thomas is a researcher specializing in algorithmic number theory and its interactions with cryptography. Before joining PQShield, he was working at N.T.T. in Tokyo. He holds a Ph.D. from Sorbonne University, Paris.
Dr Thom Wiggers
Senior Cryptography Researcher
Dr Thom Wiggers
Senior Cryptography Researcher
Thom has recently submitted his PhD thesis manuscript on post-quantum TLS at Radboud University, The Netherlands. He is known for the KEMTLS proposal for post-quantum authentication in TLS. His main research interests include making post-quantum cryptography work in cryptographic protocols and standardization of PQC.
Dr Pierre-Yves Strub
Lead Formal Verification Researcher
Dr Pierre-Yves Strub
Lead Formal Verification Researcher
Pierre-Yves is a researcher in formal methods and their application to the certification of cryptographic algorithms & high-performance implementations. He holds a Ph.D. from École Polytechnique, France.
Dr Antoon Purnal
Cryptography Security Analyst
Dr Antoon Purnal
Cryptography Security Analyst
Antoon Purnal holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from COSIC, KU Leuven. With his work on microarchitectural security and specialized cryptography, he has been a frequent speaker at flagship security conferences, such as S&P, USENIX, and CCS.
Commercial
Ben Packman
SVP Strategy
Ben Packman
SVP Strategy
A strategic leader and natural problem solver with a proven track record of delivering innovative, creative and successful commercialisation across a diverse range of business areas, both domestically and internationally. 30yrs experience in Technology, Healthcare, Media, Telecommunications, B2B and B2C. In recent years has worked with and advised multiple tech startup / scale-up businesses including PQShield, Navenio, Vivacity, ThoughtRiver, CareLineLive and Kinetik Wellbeing to name but a few.
Murray Stewart
Principal Sales Engineer
Murray Stewart
Principal Sales Engineer
Murray has 20+ years experience in the technology sector working with hardware and software security solutions. At NXP he was responsible for enabling automotive OEMs with secure processors. Murray then moved in to application software security working with the banking, automotive, broadcasting and pharmaceutical sectors at Arxan (now Digital.ai) and Checkmarx. Murray has a MEng in Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Glasgow.
Ruskin Fiegenbaum
Senior Account Executive
Ruskin Fiegenbaum
Senior Account Executive
Ruskin has 12 years of sales experience in the Semiconductor and IOT solutions space, specifically team management and account executive roles in direct sales in the enterprise customer base. Most recently Ruskin worked at Siemens EDA.
Matthias C. Brickel
Commercial Business Manager
Matthias C. Brickel
Commercial Business Manager
Matthias draws from a wealth of international experience in financial markets, consulting, and entrepreneurship. He held different front office positions at a global investment bank, specialising in capital markets, and he worked in various leadership roles at international organisations. Most recently, Matthias was appointed to co-head the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Oxford Hub, leading social impact-driven projects with global reach. Matthias holds a master’s degree from Exeter College, University of Oxford. Prior to Oxford, he studied business administration, finance, and economics in Germany, the U.S., Mexico, and Argentina.
Pascal Sfeir
Sales Director (Europe)
Pascal Sfeir
Sales Director (Europe)
Pascal has more than 20 years of international experience in the security sector, working with system integration, software and consulting. During his career with Idemia and Thales, Pascal has amassed a wealth of experience in the biometrics, identity, border control, smart city and cyber security fields. Pascal 's input and experience has enabled significant growth in businesses across the regions of the Middle East, Latin America and North America.
Burkhard Jour
Sales Director (Europe)
Burkhard Jour
Sales Director (Europe)
Burkhard joins us from Wind River and combines a strong engineering background covering embedded software and hardware with 30+ years of experience in sales, sales management and project management in the areas of real-time control, telecommunications and security solutions.
Gene M. Frost
Senior Sales Engineer
Gene M. Frost
Senior Sales Engineer
Gene joined us as a Senior Sales Engineer based in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, with responsibility for hardware and software design-in activities. He specialises in Cryptography, PKI, Embedded Software, Enterprise Storage and Networks Security. Gene brings significant experience from a range businesses such as Digicert, Cryptomathic, Cavium, HPE, Utimaco, Thales and many more.
Operations
Michael Vroobel
VP Operations
Michael Vroobel
VP Operations
Michael has 10 years' experience building and leading operations functions in high growth technology companies - most recently with fintech scaleups TrueLayer and MarketFinance. Michael has an MEng in Electrical & Information Sciences from University of Cambridge.
Béatrice Shelley
Head of People
Béatrice Shelley
Head of People
Having spent over a decade within the talent and people operations space, Béatrice has experience ranging from startup to FTSE100 companies. Prior to joining PQShield, her most recent role was People Project Manager of Workforce Transformation EMEA for Worldpay from FIS. She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Marketing from University of Grenoble and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Joni Searle
Head of Finance
Joni Searle
Head of Finance
Joni has 15+ years experience in Accounting & Finance and is ACCA qualified. Having started out as an auditor and working in public practice for a number of years, she has gained experience across various industries and different size companies. Most recently she worked as Global Accounting Director for Birchbox for 7 years, gaining valuable experience in a high growth subscription startup environment. Joni has a Masters degree in Tax as well as an Honours degree in Accounting.
Elvira Carasol
Executive Assistant & People Ops
Elvira Carasol
Executive Assistant & People Ops
Elvira joins PQShield with a wealth of global experience in organising and prioritising work in demanding environments. She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management from DeVry University, California.
Alice Beman
Junior Management Accountant
Alice Beman
Junior Management Accountant
Alice is a part qualified ACCA accountant and has a first class degree in Accounting and Finance. Most recently she has been working in the e-commerce beauty sector with a fast growing start up and has gained great experience in a dynamic start up environment.
Desiree Artiguas
People Executive
Desiree Artiguas
People Executive
Desiree has worked in the People & Talent area for more than a decade across different sectors and company sizes in the UK, Spain, and Latin America. She has a passion for making workplaces successful and thriving environments where people can flourish to their full potential. She is an Organizational Psychologist with a Master’s Degree in International Human Resources Management from Kingston University and a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Chanal Stevens
Compliance Manager
Chanal Stevens
Compliance Manager
Chanal joins us in managing the Data protection and Compliance requirements for PQShield. A qualified information security auditor, Chanal has gained experience implementing information security and quality management systems, in the healthcare sector, service management software development and manufacturing industries.
Join Us
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Careers at PQShield