João Ribeiro, Assistant Professor at the Mathematics Department of Instituto Superior Técnico and researcher at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant (ERC StG), worth approximately €1.5 million.
The researcher is currently leading the CMU Portugal exploratory research project, “Fully-Homomorphic Encryption from Post-Quantum Code-Based Assumptions”.
The ERC StG will contribute to João Ribeiro advancing the study of synchronization loss errors — a type of communication error where symbols are deleted rather than replaced, disrupting alignment between sender and receiver. These errors are particularly relevant in emerging data storage technologies, such as DNA-based systems. The project will tackle fundamental questions at the crossroads of mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering, developing new methods that go beyond traditional techniques designed for simpler errors like erasures. By combining ideas from algebra, combinatorics, and geometry, the researcher aims to open new frontiers in safeguarding information in next-generation communication and storage systems.
Launched in 2025, the exploratory research project “Fully-Homomorphic Encryption from Post-Quantum Code-Based Assumptions” aims to develop (from theoretical conception to practical implementation) and thoroughly evaluate efficient Fully-Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) protocols – an advanced form of cryptography which allows a client to delegate any sort of expensive computation on their data to an untrusted server, while guaranteeing that this server does not learn any information about the client’s data in the process.
Under this project, one of eight Exploratory Research Projects selected in CMU Portugal’s 2024 call, the researcher is collaborating with Aayush Jain, faculty at CMU’s Computer Science Department.
Read more in Técnico Website.