Short Bio

Stefan Saroiu is a researcher in the Software-Hardware Co-design Research Group at Microsoft Research. His research interests cover many aspects of systems and networks, although his recent work has primarily focused on hardware and systems security. Stefan's work has been published at top conferences in the fields of security, systems, networking, and mobile computing.

Stefan takes his work beyond publishing results. With his colleagues at Microsoft, he (1) designed Sigries, a Rowhammer defense built in the Azure Cobalt 200 SoC (Microsoft 1P silicon), (2) designed Panopticon, a Rowhammer defense adopted by the DRAM industry, (3) designed, deployed, and operated Microsoft Embedded Social, a cloud service aimed at user engagement in mobile apps, which had 20 million users, (4) created the reference implementation of a firmware-based Trusted Platform Module (fTPM) used in hundreds of millions of smartphones and tablets, and (5) designed and operated Zero-Effort Payments (ZEP), one of the first face recognition-based payment systems in the world.

Before joining Microsoft in 2008, Stefan spent three years as a faculty member in the Computer Science Department at the University of Toronto, and four months as a visiting researcher at Amazon.com, where he contributed to the early designs of their new shopping cart system, known as Dynamo. Stefan has a PhD from the University of Washington where he was advised by Steve Gribble and Hank Levy. Stefan is an ACM Fellow.