Raluca Ada Popa

Raluca Ada Popa

Robert E. and Beverly A. Brooks Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
UC Berkeley
Address: 729 Soda Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720
Email: raluca AT eecs DOT berkeley DOT edu
@ralucaadapopa




I am an associate professor at UC Berkeley, and I lead the Frontier Security team at Google DeepMind.
I am interested in systems security, machine learning security, and applied cryptography.

At UC Berkeley, I co-founded and co-direct the RISELab and SkyLab, labs aiming to build secure intelligent systems for the cloud and for the sky of clouds, respectively, and the DARE program for promoting diversity and equity. As faculty, I was awarded the ACM Grace Murray Hopper award, Sloan Research Fellowship, J. Lepreau Best Paper Award, Distinguished Paper Award, J. and D. Gray Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Computer Science, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, NSF CAREER, Bakar Faculty Fellowship, and I was selected to the list of 35 innovators under 35 by MIT Technology Review.

Starting with 2023, I have been a co-creator and research advisor of the Exocore Restaking Protocol.
Starting with 2021, I have been a co-founder of Opaque Systems (and served as its President during 2021-2024).
Starting with 2015, I have been a co-founder of PreVeil (and served as its CTO during 2015-2021).

Before joining UC Berkeley, I did a one-year postdoc at ETH Zürich in the System Security group led by Srdjan Capkun. Before that, in 2014, I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at MIT, my thesis being about building practical systems that compute on encrypted data. My PhD thesis was awarded a George M. Sprowls Award for best MIT CS doctoral theses. My advisor was Nickolai Zeldovich, and I was also fortunate to work closely with Hari Balakrishnan in systems, and with Shafi Goldwasser, Yael Kalai, and Vinod Vaikuntanathan in cryptography. I earned my Masters of Engineering in Computer Science in 2010 and my two Bachelors in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2009 also from MIT.

PhD advisees:

Alumni:

In addition, I have been working with a wonderful group of undergraduates and masters students.


Papers

Theses



CS161: Computer Security, Spring 2024, undergraduate, ≈600 students

CS 261: Security in Computer Systems, Fall 2023, graduate

CS161: Computer Security, Spring 2023, undergraduate, ≈700 students

CS294-163: Secure Systems from Decentralized Trust, Fall 2022, graduate

CS 161: Computer Security, Fall 2021, undergraduate

CS 276: Cryptography and Applications, Fall 2020, graduate

CS 161: Computer Security, Spring 2020, undergraduate, ≈620 students

CS 294: Decentralized Security: Theory and Systems, Fall 2019, graduate, NEW COURSE

CS 161: Computer Security, Spring 2019, undergraduate, ≈600 students

CS 261: Security in Computer Systems, Fall 2018, graduate

CS 161: Computer Security, Spring 2018, undergraduate, ≈625 students

CS 261: Security in Computer Systems, Fall 2017, graduate

CS 161: Computer Security, Fall 2016, undergraduate, ≈380 students

CS 294: RISE Lab: Real-time, Intelligent, and Secure Systems, Fall 2016, graduate, NEW COURSE

CS 161: Computer Security, Spring 2016, undergraduate, ≈500 students

CS 261: Security in Computer Systems, Fall 2015, graduate


As professor:

As graduate student:

As undergraduate student:





Selected service activities:

DARE

In early 2019, I launched , a diversity program aiming to match strong undergraduates, many from underrepresented backgrounds, with EECS professors for research. With help from EECS, we developed a web application system for DARE. I have been running the program even since its launch. Every year, the program enables undergraduates, many from underrepresented backgrounds, to engage in research with EECS faculty.

PC committees