alessandro chiesa

 

 

Alessandro Chiesa is a co-founder and chief scientist of Starkware, a company developing zero-knowledge-based scaling solutions. He is a co-founder of Zcash and co-author of the Zerocash protocol.

 

Born in Italy, he earned his Ph.D. in computer science from MIT and pursued his research career in Switzerland and the Bay Area. In the fields of cryptography, computer science, and complexity theory, he is currently a researcher and lecturer.

 

Even though he is not well-known, his record of papers and citations spoke for him in 2020. In 2020, his work was cited 1,208 times, the highest number ever. He contributed to 15 papers in total, making it his most productive period in recent years.

 

His research focused on making zero-knowledge technologies more realistic. For example, the Zexe proposal uses cutting-edge single-setup SNARKs to enable private and decentralized processing. He also worked on new quantum-resistant, transparent recursive proofs technology, which could be valuable for blockchain applications. Many more publications focused on very technical elements of computer science.

 

While no one can blame him for taking his foot off the gas for a while, His work has huge ramifications for blockchain scalability and privacy. Fundamental research into zero-knowledge proofs is critical if more scalable, private blockchains with sophisticated capabilities are to be seen.

 

He is well-positioned to promote blockchain technology both theoretically and practically, thanks to his prolific research career and privileged position as a head scientist at StarkWare.