David Pointcheval

Timeline

1. 1991–1996

   ENS and a Caen PhD

   He studies at the École Normale Supérieure from 1991 to 1996. In December 1996, he completes a PhD in computer science at the University of Caen with a thesis titled "Proofs of knowledge and their security proofs".

2. 1998–2002

   CNRS post and forking lemma

   He joins the French National Centre for Scientific Research in 1998 as a researcher in the computer science department of the École Normale Supérieure. In 2000, he and Jacques Stern publish "Security Arguments for Digital Signatures and Blind Signatures" in the Journal of Cryptology, and his provable-security work includes the forking lemma and the Pointcheval-Stern signature algorithm. He obtains his habilitation at the University of Paris 7 in 2002, titled "Public-key encryption and provable security".

3. 2005–2024

   Head of ENS cryptography group

   In 2005, he becomes head of the Crypto Research Group in the computer science department at ENS, a post he holds until 2024. He becomes a CNRS Directeur de Recherche in 2007, deputy head of the department in 2011, and its head in 2017, serving as head until 2024.

4. 2014–2020

   ERC grant for CryptoCloud

   From 2014 to 2020, he holds the ERC Advanced Grant 2013 project CryptoCloud.

5. 2019

   Encrypted deep learning at NeurIPS

   In 2019, he coauthors "Partially Encrypted Deep Learning using Functional Encryption" at NeurIPS with Théo Ryffel, Francis Bach, Edouard Dufour-Sans and Romain Gay. The paper proposes a framework for partially encrypted, privacy-preserving predictions that combines adversarial training with functional encryption, including a new scheme for computing quadratic functions on encrypted data.

6. 2021

   CNRS Silver Medal and RSA award

   In 2021, he receives the CNRS Silver Medal as a member of the ENS computer science department. He also receives the RSA Conference Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics in 2021, for developing provable-security arguments for applied public-key cryptographic systems and protocols.

7. 2024–2025

   IACR Fellow and Carnot Prize

   He becomes a Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research in 2024, for contributions to the design and provable security analysis of public-key cryptosystems, educational leadership, and service to the IACR. In 2025, the French Academy of Sciences awards him the Lazare Carnot Prize.

8. Since September 2024

   Chief Scientific Officer at Cosmian

   In September 2024, Cosmian, a French company founded in 2018 to secure cloud computing and confidential AI with cryptography, announces him as its Chief Scientific Officer. He has advised the company since its founding and co-developed its post-quantum encryption algorithm Covercrypt and its encrypted search tool Findex. He is on leave from CNRS.