Professional Summary

I am a security researcher focusing on (mobile) operating system security and trusted computing. In the past, I was particularly looking into mandatory access control systems for the Android OS and integrating hardware security building blocks into mobile operating systems. This interest has extended to object-capability systems and developing new confidential computing solutions. More recently, I also worked on the intersection of those topics with human-centered studies, authentication, and data science.

Since December 2021 I am a tenured faculty at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken, Germany, and heading the Trusted Systems Group. Between July 2018 and December 2021 I headed the same group at CISPA as tenure-track faculty and between June 2016 and July 2018 as a Research Group Leader.

I earned my Dr.-Ing. from Saarland University in 2016 with my thesis on ‘Establishing Mandatory Access Control on Android OS,’ which I wrote under supervision of Prof. Michael Backes. I finished my Master of Science in Engineering, Security and Mobile Computing on the KTH/DTU track of the NordSecMob Erasmus Mundus programme with my thesis “Using TCG/DRTM for application-specific credential storage and usage” in cooperation with Nokia Research Center, Helsinki, Finland.

Recent Publications
(2026). SoK: Capability Operating Systems: Is the Future Finally Here?. 36th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security ‘26).
(2026). Trust Nothing: RTOS Security without Run-Time Software TCB. 36th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security ‘26).
(2026). High Impedance: Analysis of Publicly Disclosed Vulnerabilities in FPGA IP Cores. 11th IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P ‘26).
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(2026). Poster: A Systematic Review of Migration-Relevant Software Idioms and Their Interactions with Capability Systems. 11th IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P ‘26).
(2026). From Discovery to Decisions: Archetypal Journeys of Mobile App Users and Their Implications on Privacy. ACM International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘26).
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Academic Service

Program (Co-)Chair

Program Committee Member

  • IEEE SP: 2027, 2026, 2025, 2024, 2022
  • USENIX Security: 2027, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019
  • ACM CCS: 2019, 2018
  • ACM SAC: 2019
  • IEEE EuroSP: 2016

Workshops

  • FoPI (co-located with IEEE EuroSP): 2021
  • WAY (co-located with USENIX SOUPS): 2020
  • SysTEX (co-located with ACM CCS): 2016

External Reviewer

  • ACM CHI: 2024

Journal Reviewer

  • ACM TOPS: 2023
  • IEEE TDSC: 2021, 2016, 2014
  • IEEE TIFS: 2017
  • IEEE TDSCSI: 2014