Short Bio

Stefan Saroiu is a researcher with Microsoft Research. His research interests cover many aspects of systems and networks, although his recent work has primarily focused on 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 Panopticon, a Rowhammer defense adopted by the DRAM industry, (2) designed, deployed, and operated Microsoft Embedded Social, a cloud service aimed at user engagement in mobile apps, which had 20 million users, (3) created the reference implementation of a firmware-based Trusted Platform Module (fTPM) used in hundreds of millions of smartphones and tablets, and (4) 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 an Assistant Professor 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, also known as Dynamo. Stefan has a PhD from the University of Washington and is an ACM Fellow.