PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

François-Xavier Standaert

Also known as François‐Xavier Standaert, F. -X. Standaert, F. Standaert, F.-X. Standaert, F.-x. Standaert, Francois-Xavier Standaert

François-Xavier Standaert is a cryptography researcher whose AI work tests how training randomness changes explanations from large language models. He earned engineering and PhD degrees at the Université catholique de Louvain, researched at Columbia and MIT, and joined UCLouvain's Crypto Group. At ICTEAM, he became a professor and studied masked AES implementations for embedded software. He is an IACR Fellow, received the 2025 Applied Exact Sciences Prize from FNRS, and is a research director in UCLouvain's Crypto Group.

Now at
UCLouvain
Born
1978
Works
491
Citations
16,224
h-index
67
Badges

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2001–2004

    Electrical engineering degrees

    He earns an Electrical Engineering degree from the Université catholique de Louvain in 2001 and a PhD there in 2004.

  2. 2004–2008

    Research visits and IntoPix

    From 2004 to 2005, he is a Fulbright visiting researcher at Columbia University's Department of Computer Science Crypto Lab, hosted by Tal G. Malkin and Moti Yung, and at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Bits and Atoms, hosted by Neil Gershenfeld. At UCL's Crypto Group, he works as an FNRS postdoctoral researcher from 2005 to 2008 and becomes a founding member of IntoPix in 2006.

  3. 2010–2011

    CHES co-chair and ERC grant

    In 2010, he co-chairs CHES, the cryptographic hardware workshop. In 2011, he receives a Starting Independent Research Grant from the European Research Council.

  4. 2013–2018

    ICTEAM professor and AES masking

    At UCLouvain's ICTEAM, he becomes an associate professor in 2013 and professor in 2018. In 2017, with Anthony Journault, he evaluates higher-order masking algorithms for AES Rijndael and the Fantomas bitslice cipher in 32-bit embedded software, reporting realistic timings for implementations with 32 shares.

  5. 2024

    LLM explanation sensitivity

    In 2024, with Jérémie Bogaert, he studies how explanations of large language models respond to training randomness and proposes statistical definitions of signal, noise, and signal-to-noise ratio.

  6. 2024

    An IACR Fellowship

    The IACR names him a Fellow in 2024 for contributions to cryptography in the presence of leakage and for service to the association.

  7. 2025

    The Applied Exact Sciences Prize

    In 2025, the FNRS awards him the Applied Exact Sciences Prize, named the Dr. A. De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart Prize.

  8. Since 2025

    FNRS research director

    In November 2025, he is FNRS research director within UCLouvain's Crypto Group.

Career

  1. 2026–2028International Association for Cryptologic ResearchVice-president
  2. 2025–2026UCLouvainFNRS research director
  3. 2003–2023KU Leuven
  4. 2002–2008University College London

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes UCLouvain. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes UCLouvain. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes UCLouvain. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University College London. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Introduction to side-channel cryptanalysis (and some recent results) - Francois-Xavier Standaert - 8.11.16 - Khoury College of Computer Sciences khoury.northeastern.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Computer Science Seminars diseminars.web.ulb.be. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Very High Order Masking: Efficient Implementation and Security Evaluation eprint.iacr.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. [2403.10275] A Question on the Explainability of Large Language Models and the Word-Level Univariate First-Order Plausibility Assumption arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. François-Xavier Standaert, 2024 IACR Fellow iacr.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. The 6 FNRS Quinquennal Prizes reward scientific excellence in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation | FNRS frs-fnrs.be. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. La recherche fondamentale, c’est réfléchir de façon complètement gratuite à des phénomènes pour les comprendre – DAILY SCIENCE dailyscience.be. Checked 22 October 2026.