🧠 🍕 🌯 Blocki’s Lab Lunch

Welcome to our lab’s informal talk series, organized by professor Jeremiah Blocki!
We meet every week in one of the LWSN computer science building conference rooms (or sometimes via Zoom).

đź“… Time: Fridays, 12:00 PM đź“Ť Location: LWSN 1168

🧪 About the Blocki’s Lab Lunch

The Blocki’s Lab Lunch at Purdue University explores the theoretical foundations of cryptography, privacy, usable security and complexity theory, focusing on how to design algorithms and protocols that achieve strong security guarantees with practical efficiency. Our research spans topics such as memory-hard functions, differential privacy, (amortized) locally decodable codes, and secure password systems, combining tools from theoretical computer science, information theory, and applied cryptography. Recent publications from the lab have introduced advances in provably memory-hard proofs of work, differentially private compression, conditional encryption, quantum reversibility and graph pebbling. Through our weekly Lab Lunch Talks, we share new results, discuss ongoing projects, and foster collaboration among students and researchers interested in the mathematics of security and the limits of efficient computation.

đź“… Upcoming and Past Talks

Summer 2026

Date Speaker Title Materials
June 25, 2026 Justin Zhang Presentaion topic: Amortized locally decodable codes -
June 18, 2026 No Lab Lunch - -
June 11, 2026 Nathan Smearsoll Presentaion topic: Recent improvement in node depth-robust graphs using Super Concentrators. -
June 05, 2026 Mohammad Hassan Ameri Paper title: Random Robust Secret Sharing with Perfect Privacy and its Applications [Link to the Paper]
May 28, 2026 No Lab Lunch - -
May 21, 2026 No Lab Lunch - -
May 14, 2026 Jeremiah Blocki Notes: LZ77 Compression Sensitivity for Differential Privacy [Summary of notes will be added*]
May 08, 2026 Jeremiah Blocki Meeting topic: Robust Pseudo-Random Codes (PRC) and Watermarking: By Alrabiah et al. [Link*] -

Srping 2026

Date Speaker Title Materials
May 01, 2026 Jeremiah Blocki Meeting topic: Research discussion/direction on Proof of Sequential Work (PoSW) Concepts and Evolution [Summary of notes will be added*]
April 24, 2026 Jeremiah Blocki Meeting topic: P-bit Fixing Quantum Random Oracle Model (P-BF-QROM) Overview [Summary of notes will be added*]
April 17, 2026 Jeremiah Blocki Meeting topic: l-Nested Collision Finding Problem: Classical vs Quantum algorithms [Summary of notes will be added*]
April 10, 2026 Meeting topic: Ethical Consideration in Security and Privacy-related Research (Continue) - -
April 03, 2026 Jeremiah Blocki Meeting topic: Ethical Consideration in Security and Privacy-related Research: Data Use, Disclosure and Conduct [Summary of notes will be added*]
March 27, 2026 Mohammad Hassan Ameri Paper titlle: Non-uniformity and Quantum Advice in the Quantum Random Oracle Model. By [Qipeng Liu ] [Link to the Paper*]
March 20, 2026 No Lab Lunch - -
March 13, 2026 No Lab Lunch - -
March 6, 2026 Justin Zhang Paper titlle: Exponential lower bound for 2-query locally decodable codes via a quantum argument [Link to the Paper*]
Feb 27, 2026 Nathan Smearsoll Paper titlle: The Space-Time Cost of Purifying Quantum Computations. By [Mark Zhandry] [Link to the Paper*]
Feb 20, 2026 Nathan Smearsoll Presentation titlle: Quantum Algorithm for Collision Finding/Pre Image Search [Summary of notes be added!]
Feb 13, 2026 Nathan Smearsoll Presentation titlle: Collision finding Algorithms: Classical vs. Quantum. [Summary of notes be added!]
Feb 6, 2026 No Lab Lunch - -
Jan 30, 2026 Jeremiah Blocki Paper title: Quantum cryptanalysis of hash and claw-free functions*. By [Gilles Brassard et al.] [Link to the Paper]
Jan 23, 2026 Blake Paper title: How to Record Quantum Queries, and Applications to Quantum Indifferentiability. By [Mark Zhandry] [Link to the Paper]
Jan 16, 2026 Hadas Zeilberger (Yale University) Error-Correcting Codes That Enable Efficient SNARKs [Video-Simons Institute]

Fall 2025

Date Speaker Title Materials
Dec 12, 2025 Blake – –
Dec 05, 2025 No Lab Lunch (TCC conference) – –
Nov 28, 2025 No Lab Lunch (Thanksgiving) – –
Nov 21, 2025 Seunghoon Lee Differentially Private Compression and the Sensitivity of LZ77 (TCC practice talk-Zoom) Full Version
Nov 14, 2025 Nathan Smearsoll Provably Memory-Hard Proofs of Work With Memory-Easy Verification (TCC practice presentation) Full Version
Nov 07, 2025 Blake Holman The Impact of Reversibility on Parallel Pebbling. Full Version
Oct 31, 2025 Justin Zhang Pseudorandom Coding and Its application in Watermarking the output texts generated by LLMs –
Oct 24, 2025 Jeremiah Blocki, Blake Holman, Nathan Smearsoll Research-related discussion and collaboration –
Oct 17, 2025 TBD – –
Oct 10, 2025 STOC25 talk: Bhaskar Roberts, Aparna Gupte Quantum One-Time Programs, Revisited Video
Sep 26, 2025 EuroCrypt25 Talk: Adi Shamir Polynomial Time Cryptanalytic Extraction of Deep Neural Networks in the Hard-Label Setting. Video (33:35)
Sep 19, 2025 Justin Zhang Amortized Locally Decodable Codes for Insertions and Deletions. Full Version
Sep 12, 2025 Nathan Smearsoll Provably Memory-Hard Proofs of Work With Memory-Easy Verification. Full Version

🎯 Research Highlights and News

✨ Our lab’s ongoing projects combine deep theoretical insights with practical cryptographic design.
Here are a few themes we’re currently exploring:

💬 We welcome collaborations, reading group suggestions, and spontaneous “chalk-talk” ideas over lunch! contact: mameriek[at]purdue.edu

This site hosts the Blocki Lab’s seminar schedule, research highlights, and discussion summaries.