Research on a Professor in GMU CS Department

The purpose of doing this assignment is to know about the professor in detail you want to work
in future and their research interests. If you also have the same interests, you will have an idea where to look for
supervisors and how to approach them. This assignment covers every academic information about a particular
professor which has the same interests such as data privacy or cybersecurity in research as me. I selected
Assistant Professor Foteini Baldimtsi for my research assignment. She is originally from Greece and also did
her Bachelors in Applied Informatics from the University of Macedonia, Greece in 2008 (Baldimtsi, Foteini ,
2017). Later, she did her Masters in Computer Science from Brown University, USA in 2011 and completed her
Ph.D in Computer Science from Brown University, USA in 2014 (Baldimtsi, Foteini , 2017). She was also a
Postdoctoral researcher in Boston University, USA from 2014-2016 and then she joined George Mason
University Computer Science department as Assistant Professor in August, 2016 (Baldimtsi, Foteini , 2017).
Brown University is at number 20th in ranking to have a best CS department in USA (US News & World Report,
2017). She also completed semester internship at Microsoft Research where she worked in Cryptography group
and then she also worked as an intern at IBM research in their Cryptography and Security group (Baldimtsi,
Foteini, 2017). This shows how talented she is and getting such opportunities at the early stage is an enormous
success. She taught network security in fall 2016 which I will be studying during my degree and her teaching
method is very unique, mostly focused on class participation and projects or presentations instead of exams
(Baldimtsi, Foteini, 2017).
She did a lot of work in the field of cryptography, private authentication, data privacy, security,
block-chain technologies and electronic cash but her main interest or focus is on bitcoin and block-chain
technologies (Baldimtsi, Foteini, 2017). Bitcoin is a new emerging technology so there is not too much research
done on it yet. Being a scholar or researcher, you have to come up with something different or unique so this is
the area where you can do a lot of research now. Business people are talking about this technology and they are
willing to invest a lot of money in it. When she started as a researcher, her publications or focus is on
cryptography and data privacy such as encryption and decryption and her first research paper was published in
2007 but then she start writing research papers on e-cash or e-payment in 2012 onwards which was a kind of
new concept at that time (Baldimtsi, Foteini, 2017). Two years ago, she mostly focused on Bitcoin technology
and wrote research papers about it. She moved very swiftly to new technology with time and start working on it.
She did not focused at one thing. Unlike other researchers who mostly spent their whole life doing research on
the same thing and it is not very easy to start doing research on new topics after three or four years. This technique
(shifting to new technologies with time as a researcher) is very useful in my field (Software Engineering) because
technology is not stable, it will be moving forward day by day means almost every year some new technology
introduced in the world. If you want to be successful in this field you have to update yourself as quickly as
possible with time and learning new technologies which is not very common in many fields.
She used many different journals for her research papers such as E-business and
telecommunication, Financial Cryptography, PKC, Bitcoin, ASIACRYPT, Information Assurance and Security
and others but her two research papers were published in Financial Cryptography Journal which is a well-known
international forum for doing research on cryptography and data privacy because experts of this field get together
from around the world so presenting your research paper at such forum is a big achievement (IFCA, 2017). It is
also related to my interest (cyber security) so knowing these forums will help me later while doing research on
data privacy or security and what are the good places to present your research paper. At the start, she published
her research papers at state level data privacy forums such as Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov
and then she moved to international forums such as Bitcoin or Financial Cryptography (Baldimtsi, Foteini,
2017).
She is also a member of International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) and Greek
Association of Computing Professionals from 2008 to now (Baldimtsi, Foteini , 2017). She also worked as a
volunteer in Eurocrypt 2013. She worked as external reviewer for many publication associations such as
Eurocrypt, Asiacrypt, ACM-CSS, CANS, ICS, PKC and others from last seven years which is another great
achievement as being a researcher because you will be reviewing other peoples research paper which gives you
different thinking perspective of something and helped you learnt more about your field (Baldimtsi, Foteini ,
2017).
Being a researcher, you have to make sure that your work is authentic and updated or useful in
this era, then you have to find best relevant publication forums to present your topic in front of the experts of
your field and this will be the opportunity for us to get along with the experts of my field. Also, try to keep
updated to technology as soon as possible to become successful.

References
Baldimtsi, Foteini . (2017, 10 30). Foteini Baldimtsi CV. Retrieved from Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_kFPO89YijYXA1NTFzQ3loNWM/view
Baldimtsi, Foteini. (2017, 10 30). Foteini Baldimtsi. Retrieved from Foteini Baldimtsi:
http://www.baldimtsi.com/
IFCA. (2017, 10 30). International Financial Cryptography Association. Retrieved from IFCA: International
Financial Cryptography Association: https://ifca.ai/
University, G. M. (2017, 10 30). GMU CS Department Faculty. Retrieved from George Mason University
Department of Computer Science: http://cs.gmu.edu/directory/detail/65/
US News & World Report. (2017, 10 30). Best Grad Schools US News and World Report Rankings. Retrieved
from US News and World Report : https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-
schools/computer-science-rankings