Hi. I will join ExeQuantum in July 2025 as a Chief Technology Officer. Prior to that, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at CSIRO’s Data61.

My research focuses on the efficient and secure implementation techniques for post-quantum cryptographic applications and protocols, particularly the lattice-based cryptosystems.

You can retrieve my full CV here.

Published Papers:

• Nosy Layers, Noisy Fixes: Tackling DRAs in Federated Learning Systems using Explainable AI. (2025). Meghali Nandi, Arash Shaghaghi, Nazatul Haque Sultan, Gustavo Batista, Raymond K. Zhao, & Sanjay Jha. To appear in AsiaCCS 2025.
• Enabling Quantum-Resistant EDHOC: Design and Performance Evaluation. (2025). Lidia Pocero Fraile, Georgios Tasopoulos, Christos Koulamas, Raymond K. Zhao, Nazatul H. Sultan, Francesco Regazzoni, & Apostolos P. Fournaris. IEEE Access. DOI 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3554010.
• MIKA: A Minimalist Approach to Hybrid Key Exchange. (2024). Raymond K. Zhao, Nazatul H. Sultan, Phillip Yialeloglou, Dongxi Liu, David Liebowitz, & Josef Pieprzyk. Proceedings of PST 2024. DOI 10.1109/PST62714.2024.10788054.
• LUNA: Quasi-Optimally Succinct Designated-Verifier Zero-Knowledge Arguments from Lattices. (2024). Ron Steinfeld, Amin Sakzad, Muhammed F. Esgin, Veronika Kuchta, Mert Yassi, & Raymond K. Zhao. Proceedings of ACM CCS 2024. DOI 10.1145/3658644.3670345.
• High Throughput Lattice-based Signatures on GPUs: Comparing Falcon and Mitaka. (2024). Wai-Kong Lee, Raymond K. Zhao, Ron Steinfeld, Amin Sakzad, & Seong Oun Hwang. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. DOI 10.1109/TPDS.2024.3367319.
• Quantum-safe HIBE: does it cost a Latte?. (2024). Raymond K. Zhao, Sarah McCarthy, Ron Steinfeld, Amin Sakzad, & Máire O’Neill. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security. DOI 10.1109/TIFS.2023.3347880. Full version.
• A New Look at Blockchain Leader Election: Simple, Efficient, Sustainable and Post-Quantum. (2023). Muhammed F. Esgin, Oguzhan Ersoy, Veronika Kuchta, Julian Loss, Amin Sakzad, Ron Steinfeld, Wayne Yang, & Raymond K. Zhao. Proceedings of AsiaCCS 2023. DOI 10.1145/3579856.3595792.
• Energy Consumption Evaluation of Post-Quantum TLS 1.3 for Resource-Constrained Embedded Devices. (2023). George Tasopoulos, Charis Dimopoulos, Apostolos P. Fournaris, Raymond K. Zhao, Amin Sakzad, Ron Steinfeld. Proceedings of MAL-IoT 2023. DOI 10.1145/3587135.3592821.
• Performance Evaluation of Post-Quantum TLS 1.3 on Resource-Constrained Embedded Systems. (2022). George Tasopoulos, Jinhui Li, Apostolos P. Fournaris, Raymond K. Zhao, Amin Sakzad, & Ron Steinfeld. Proceedings of ISPEC 2022. DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-21280-2_24.
• Efficient Verifiable Partially-Decryptable Commitments from Lattices and Applications. (2022). Muhammed F. Esgin, Ron Steinfeld, & Raymond K. Zhao. Proceedings of PKC 2022. DOI 10.1007/978-3-030-97121-2_12.
• MatRiCT+: More Efficient Post-Quantum Private Blockchain Payments. (2022). Muhammed F. Esgin, Ron Steinfeld, & Raymond K. Zhao. Proceedings of IEEE S&P 2022. DOI 10.1109/SP46214.2022.9833655.
• COSAC: COmpact and Scalable Arbitrary-Centered Discrete Gaussian Sampling over Integers. (2020). Raymond K. Zhao, Ron Steinfeld, & Amin Sakzad. Proceedings of PQCrypto 2020. DOI 10.1007/978-3-030-44223-1_16.
• FACCT: FAst, Compact, and Constant-Time Discrete Gaussian Sampler over Integers. (2020). Raymond K. Zhao, Ron Steinfeld, & Amin Sakzad. IEEE Transactions on Computers. DOI 10.1109/TC.2019.2940949.
• MatRiCT: Efficient, Scalable and Post-Quantum Blockchain Confidential Transactions Protocol. (2019). Muhammed F. Esgin, Raymond K. Zhao, Ron Steinfeld, Joseph K. Liu, & Dongxi Liu. Proceedings of ACM CCS 2019. DOI 10.1145/3319535.3354200.
• Practical MP-LWE-based encryption balancing security-risk versus efficiency. (2019). Ron Steinfeld, Amin Sakzad, & Raymond K. Zhao. Designs, Codes and Cryptography. DOI 10.1007/s10623-019-00654-5.

Other Works:

• Quantum Key Distribution. (2024). Jiafan Wang, Raymond Zhao, & Dongxi Liu. Australian patent 2024901225.
• eMLE-Sig 2.0: A Signature Scheme based on Embedded Multilayer Equations with Heavy Layer Randomization. (2023). Dongxi Liu & Raymond K. Zhao. Submitted to the NIST PQC Round 1 Additional Signatures. Latest.
• Scalable and Efficient Hybrid QKD with Post-quantum Authentications. (2023). Raymond K. Zhao, Dongxi Liu, & Josef Pieprzyk. Poster at Quantum Australia 2023.
• Implementation of Post-Quantum Algorithms for Bouncy Castle Library. Project. Contributors of the Bouncy Castle.
• Titanium: Post-Quantum Public-key Encryption and KEM Algorithms. (2017). Ron Steinfeld, Amin Sakzad, & Raymond K. Zhao. Submitted to the NIST Post-Quantum Competition.

Talks:

• High Throughput Lattice-based Signatures on GPUs: Comparing Falcon and Mitaka. (2024). Talk in the Brainlink X-Lab Day 2024.
• Quantum-Safe HIBE: Does It Cost a Latte?. (2024). Seminar in the Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub.
• Securing Communications in the Post-Quantum Era. (2023). Raymond K. Zhao, & Sara Jafarbeiki. Tutorial at AsiaCCS 2023.

Awards:

• SCS Biannual Award May 2023 (Engineering and Technology Award)
• SCS Biannual Award May 2024 (Early Career in Engineering Award)
• iAwards 25 ACT Finalist

PhD Supervisions:

• Mert Yassı (Jul 2023 – present, co-supervision with Ron Steinfeld, Amin Sakzad, and Muhammed Esgin)
• Meghali Nandi (Sep 2024 – present, co-supervision with Arash Shaghaghi, Nazatul Sultan, and Sanjay Jha)

Scientific Citizenship:

• Program Comittee: Asiacrypt 2023, ACM CCS 2024 Artifact Evaluation, ICISC 2024, TCCS 2024
• Journal Reviews: ORCID

Media Articles:

• Unleashing LATTE: A Quantum-Safe Cybersecurity Hero for Tomorrow’s Threats. August 14 2024.
• New research to make digital transactions quantum safe and twenty times faster. 16 May 2024.
• ‘Deteriorating’ cybersecurity leaves Australia vulnerable as threat of quantum computers looms. 9 January 2024.
• The new frontier in online security: quantum-safe cryptography. 14 November 2023.
• Better than best: Most efficient quantum-safe and privacy-preserving blockchain protocol gets an upgrade. 15 September 2021.
• New form of blockchain protocol coined most efficient in the world. 1 October 2020.
• Researchers develop worlds most efficient quantum-safe and privacy-preserving blockchain protocol. 30 September 2020.

My PhD Thesis:

• Efficient Implementation Techniques for Lattice-based Cryptosystems. Monash University. Supervised by Associate Professor Ron Steinfeld & Dr Amin Sakzad. Certified on Feburary 2022.