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David Evans Professor of Computer Science University of Virginia Contacting Me | Schedule a Meeting Recommended reading for: Prospective Research Students | Disgruntled Professors 3 Year-Olds | Pessimists | Optimists | Googlers | Illiterates Research Group Papers Videos Students Courses

My research group's current work focuses mainly on secure multi-party computation (including Obliv-C), adversarial machine learning (EvadeML), and web security.

In Fall 2019, I will co-teach cs3102: Theory of Computation with Nathan Brunelle. (I previously taught cs3102 in Fall 2010, but Nathan and I are planning a quite different course for the Fall.)

In Spring 2019, I taught Markets, Mechanisms, and Machines, a new joint Economics and Computer Science course, with Denis Nekipelov. In Fall 2018, I taught a Pavilion Seminar on How will Artificial Intelligence change Humanity?.

Other courses I have taught recently include a seminar on Security and Privacy of Machine Learning (Spring 2018), cs2102: Discrete Mathematics (co-taught with Mohammad Mahmoody in Fall 2017), a seminar focused on Understanding and Securing TLS (Spring 2017), cs1120: Introduction to Computing - Explorations in Language, Logic, and Machines (Fall 2016, using a new approach mostly inspired by my then-three-year-old daughter's Tae Kwon Do classes), a course on cryptocurrencies and cs4414: Operating Systems (the first course to use the Rust programming language).

I wrote two introductory computer science books, both of which are available as free downloads under a Creative Commons license, and as nicely printed color versions from Amazon.com:

Dori-Mic and the Universal Machine! (With Illustrations by Kim Dylla), 2014 A Tragicomic Tale of Combinatorics and Computability for Curious Children of All Ages "The BEST babies' book about computational universality I've read." Scott Aaronson [full review]

Introduction to Computing: Explorations in Language, Logic, and Machines Introductory computer science coursebook, 2007-2012.

I developed two open on-line courses for Udacity: cs101: Building a Search Engine (Prospect Magazine, Chronicle, more...) and cs387: Applied Cryptography (according to InformationWeek, this the #1 Online Class To Pump Up IT Careers, although it is more meant as a fun introduction to cryptography).

I co-founded the Cville Math Circle (Secret Order of the Twin Primes).

I was Program Co-Chair for the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). I organized the NSF SaTC PIs' Meeting 2015 and was program co-chair for the 30th (Oakland 2009) and 31^st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland 2010, where I initiated the SoK papers).

Research

Students Blog Publications Talks Awards Press All it took was for a University of Virginia student to finally outsmart the popular SMART cards... Falling into the wrong hands, this security loophole can be and will surely be used in high profile heists and break-ins, seemingly straight from a James Bond movie. Hacked RFIDs Render Smart Cards Less Smarter, TrendLabs Malware Blog, 18 March 2008. Except for the wire problem, the computer was a success. We could solve this with larger wires and by growing hair to cover our ears, a conspicuous style at the time, or persuade our reluctant wives to "wire up". We adjourned to consider. Edward Thorp, on building computers with Claude Shannon I am a little troubled about the tea service in the electronic computer building. Apparently the members of your staff consume several times as much supplies as the same number of people do in Fuld Hall and they have been especially unfair in the matter of sugar.... I should like to raise the question whether it would not be better for the computer people to come up to Fuld Hall at the end of the day at 5 o'clock and have their tea here under proper supervision. Letter to John von Neumann (shown in George Dyson's talk on The birth of the computer) More Quotes

I have the privilege of working with a team of extraordinary students, including both graduate and undergraduate students. Security Research Group Lunch (5 May 2017) Bill Young, Haina Li, Weilin Xu, Mohammad Etemad, Bargav Jayaraman, David Evans, Helen Simecek, Anant Kharkar, Darion Cassel If you are a UVa undergraduate or graduate student interested in joining my research group, please look over our project pages (linked below), browse our group blog, and send me email to arrange a meeting or drop by my office hours. If you are considering applying to our PhD program, please read my advice for prospective research students. If you think you are ready for graduate school, you may also want to try our previous pre-qualification exam [PDF]. Security Research Group (19 January 2016) Jack Doerner, Samee Zahur, Mahnush Movahedi, Mohammad Etemad, Haina Li, Weilin Xu, Karen Pan Everyone is welcome at the Security Research Group meetings. To get announcements, join our Slack Group (any @virginia.edu email address can join themsleves, or email me to request an invitation). Research Group Lunch (6 May 2015) UVa Students and Alumni at USENIX Security 2011 Active Funded Projects My research group is primarily funded by National Science Foundation research grants. We are also grateful for industrial research awards from Google, Intel, and Baidu, and in-kind support from Amazon and Microsoft. End-to-End Trustworthiness of Machine-Learning Systems with Patrick McDaniel (Penn State University), Dan Boneh (Stanford), Kamalika Chaudhuri (UCSD), Somesh Jha (U. Wisconsin), Percy Liang (Stanford), and Dawn Song (UC Berkeley) (NSF SaTC Frontier, 2018-2023) This frontier project establishes the Center for Trustworthy Machine Learning (CTML), a large-scale, multi-institution, multi-disciplinary effort whose goal is to develop scientific understanding of the risks inherent to machine learning, and to develop the tools, metrics, and methods to manage and mitigate them. Econometrically Inferring and Using Individual Privacy Preferences with Denis Nekipelov (UVA Economics) (NSF EAGER SaTC, 2019-2021) We are using ideas from econometrics to reveal concrete privacy preferences for individuals and aggregate distributions, and to connect those preferences to formal privacy models (including differential privacy). Multi-Party Machine Learning with Privacy with Quanquan Gu (UCLA) (NSF SaTC, 2017-2020) Privacy-preserving machine learning combining secure multi-party computation with differential privacy and other privacy techniques. Evading Classifiers with Yanjun Qi, and Westley Weimer (NSF SaTC, 2016-2019) An evolutionary framework based on genetic programming for automatically finding variants that evade detection by machine learning-based malware classifiers. Automated Security Testing for Applications Integrating Third-Party Services (NSF SaTC 2014-2019) Automated techniques to detect vulnerabilities in web applications (focusing on integration of single sign-on services) and understand behaviors of third-party embedded scripts. Completed Projects Recent and Upcoming Conferences Dependable and Secure Machine Learning (co-located with DSN 2019), Co-Oragnizer. 2nd Deep Learning and Security Workshop (DLSW 2019), Steering Committee Member. 2017 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM CCS), Program Co-Chair. National Science Foundation Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace PIs' Meeting 2015, Lead Organizer 31st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland 2010), Program Committee Co-Chair (initiated SoK) NSF/IARPA/NSA Workshop on the Science of Security (Berkeley, Nov 2008), Lead Organizer More...

Teaching

I was the Founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Major in Computer Science, which became the most popular major taught by the Engineering School.

I believe public universities have a mission to provide open education, and make all of my teaching materials openly available. I published an open introductory computing textbook based on the cs1120 course.

Selected UVa Courses (Full List)

Selected External Courses

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I've been at UVa since fall 1999, after completing my PhD, SM and SB degrees at MIT.

My most visited page is my Advice for Prospective Research Students. I have also written some advice for new (and disgruntled) professors on How to Live in Paradise, and collected my favorite advice from others.

My academic genealogy traces back to Gottfried Wilheim Leibniz.

I have taken some pictures including: Yellowstone, Glacier, Death Valley, Yosemite, Lawn Lighting, Nature near Charlottesville, China, and Bletchley Park. I also have pictures from my trips to World Cups: France 1998, Korea 2002, South Africa 2010. Now, I mostly take pictures of my son and daughter.

Family

I live in Charlottesville, VA with my wife and two children.

Our daughter, Dorina Michelle, was born 29 June 2012. She made her first original computer science contribution at only eight months old, discovering the non-equivalence of the Kleene-* and Kleene-X operators. Since then, she has been focusing on languages and inputs and outputs, but hasn't completely neglected theoretical computer science.

Our son, Maxwell Nicholas was born 18 March 2015. His accomplishments so far have been focused on minimizing interruptions in distributed systems processes, collision-free hashing, odor-optimized garbage collection, and balanced climbing trees.

Family pages: NeuroKitchen Arts Collective (my sister's project), my brother's blog, Science Serving Society (my Dad's site, focusing on traffic safety), Art Talks (by my Mom).

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David Evans University of Virginia Department of Computer Science

evans@virginia.edu