About
I am a second-year Ph.D. student in the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Prof. Elaine Shi. My research spans cryptography and privacy‑preserving systems, with a focus on Garbled RAM (GRAM), Oblivious RAM (ORAM), and efficient oblivious algorithms that are practical for hardware enclaves.
Education
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA · Jan. 2025 – Present
Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA · Aug. 2022 – Dec. 2023
M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering
UM–SJTU Dual Degree Program
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor — B.S.E. in Computer Science; Minor in Mathematics
Ann Arbor, MI · Aug. 2020 – Apr. 2022
Shanghai Jiao Tong University — B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering; Minor
in Global China Studies
Shanghai, China · Sep. 2018 – Aug. 2022
Publications
Zebra: Arithmetic Garbled RAM for Large Words from DCR
ePrint
PicoGRAM: Practical Garbled RAM from Decisional Diffie‑Hellman ePrint
Flexway O‑Sort: Enclave‑Friendly and Optimal Oblivious Sorting ePrint
Distributed Synthesis of Differentially Private Tabular Datasets
Work Experience
Oblivious Labs Inc.
Pittsburgh, PA · Jan. 2024 – Jan. 2025
Co‑founder, Lead Research Engineer
- Developed ORAM‑based privacy‑preserving key‑value store libraries in C++ and Rust for hardware enclaves (GitHub), achieving >20× performance improvement over existing implementations. Presented the work as an invited speaker at Devcon 2025 (talk).
- Built a Garbled RAM (GRAM) library in C++ enabling constant‑round secure two‑party RAM computation; outperforming prior SOTA by 5.8× (GitHub).
- Developed a privacy‑preserving oblivious sorting library in C++ achieving asymptotic optimality and a concrete >7.2× speedup over baselines in hardware enclaves (GitHub).
- Collaborated with Signal (private contact discovery), Flashbots (ORAM for Ethereum), and 0xPARC (GRAM applications in blockchains).
Alipay · Ant Group (Alibaba Inc.)
Hangzhou, China · May 2021 – Aug. 2021
Full Stack Development Engineer Intern
- Developed an automated system for alarm collection, analysis, and notification to improve AI reliability.
- Initiated root‑cause analysis and emergency tracking features; performed trend analysis.
- Contributed ≈17k lines of Java/JavaScript and improved backend management UIs.
Shanghai Computer Software Technology Development Center — Blockchain Dept.
Shanghai, China · Aug. 2020 – Oct. 2020
Research Assistant Intern
- Produced research reports on encryption chips, cross‑chain tech, and blockchain applications.
- Contributed to the 2020 Shanghai Blockchain Technology and Application White Paper.
Service & Outreach
Co‑organizer
Co‑organize and coordinate seminar speakers, scheduling, and publicity for the CyLab crypto seminar series (website).
Contact
Email: gty0929@gmail.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tianyao-gu