Eli Goldin

I am currently a postdoctoral research scientist with the Princeton Quantum Initiative working with Alex Lombardi. Previously, I completed my PhD studying cryptography at NYU advised by Marshall Ball and Yevgeniy Dodis.

My classical research mainly aims to answer the question: "how do you do cryptography when the cryptographers are out to get you?" Security practitioners often use cryptographic primitives in a black-box manner. But sometimes, these black boxes are themselves malicious. This may be caused by a backdoor inserted by some third party or just an unseen attack. I care about provably helping practitioners stuck in such a hopeless situation recover some security.

In the quantum setting, my research focuses on the foundations of quantum cryptography. I care about fundamentally quantum primitives, which require quantum computers to even execute. I am interested in the necessary assumptions for achieving quantum cryptography, and mapping out the relationships between quantum primitives. I have a particular interest in the "MicroCrypt" setting, where one may hope to achieve useful cryptography using quantum computers even if one-way functions and all of classical cryptography do not exist.

I am also generally interested in the theory of cryptography, in particular randomness extraction and quantum cryptography.

I have an Erdős-Bacon number of 5.

Talks | Publications | Service | Teaching | Game Dev | Contact

Talks

Talks I have given not attached to a specific paper.

One-Way Puzzles and the Foundations of Quantum Cryptography [pdf]
Given with Kabir Tomer during the cryptography program at Simons for the quantum cryptography reading group.

Publications

Papers are presented in reverse chronological order. Authors on all papers are in alphabetical order.

Quantum Key Exchange from Public Quantum Money [pdf]
Eli Goldin, Tomoyuki Morimae
Quantum Advantage has Few Complexity Implications [pdf]
Eli Goldin, Alex Lombardi, Tomoyuki Morimae
On Random Purifications of Isometries and Channels [pdf]
Eli Goldin
A Note on Boosting Uncloneable Encryption in Microcrypt [pdf]
James Bartusek, Eli Goldin
Unclonable Encryption in the Haar Random Oracle Model [pdf]
James Bartusek, Eli Goldin
CRYPTO 2026
Cryptographic Conditions for Efficient Testing of Distributions and Quantum States [pdf] [slides]
Bruno Cavalar, Eli Goldin, Matthew Gray, Taiga Hiroka, Min-Hsiu Hsieh, Tomoyuki Morimae
CountCrypt: Quantum Cryptography between QCMA and PP [pdf]
Eli Goldin, Tomoyuki Morimae, Saachi Mutreja, Takashi Yamakawa
TCC 2026
Less is More: On Copy Complexity in Quantum Cryptography [pdf]
Prabhanjan Ananth, Eli Goldin
CRYPTO 2026, QIP 2026, Invited talk at QCRYPT 2026
Translating Between the Common Haar Random State Model and the Unitary Model [pdf] [slides]
Eli Goldin, Mark Zhandry
CRYPTO 2025
Anamorphic-Resistant Encryption; Or Why the Encryption Debate is Still Alive [pdf] [slides]
Yevgeniy Dodis, Eli Goldin
CRYPTO 2025
Random Oracle Combiners: Merkle-Damgård Style [pdf]
Yevgeniy Dodis, Eli Goldin, Peter Hall
EUROCRYPT 2025
A Meta-Complexity Characterization of Quantum Cryptography [pdf]
Bruno Cavalar, Eli Goldin, Matthew Gray, Peter Hall
EUROCRYPT 2025
On the Computational Hardness of Quantum One-Wayness [pdf]
Bruno Cavalar, Eli Goldin, Matthew Gray, Peter Hall, Yanyi Liu, Angelos Pelecanos
Quantum 9
On Central Primitives for Quantum Cryptography with Classical Communication [pdf]
Kai-Min Chung, Eli Goldin, Matthew Gray
CRYPTO 2024
Immunizing Backdoored PRGs [pdf] [slides]
Marshall Ball, Yevgeniy Dodis, Eli Goldin
TCC 2023
Extracting Randomness from Samplable Distributions, Revisited [pdf] [slides]
Marshall Ball, Dana Dachman-Soled, Eli Goldin, Saachi Mutreja
FOCS 2023, Invited talk at ITC 2024
Random Oracle Combiners: Breaking the Concatenation Barrier for Collision-Resistance [pdf] [slides]
Yevgeniy Dodis, Niels Ferguson, Eli Goldin, Peter Hall, Krzysztof Pietrzak
CRYPTO 2023
Rotatable Zero Knowledge Sets: Post Compromise Secure Auditable Dictionaries with Application to Key Transparency [pdf] [slides]
Brian Chen, Yevgeniy Dodis, Esha Ghosh, Eli Goldin, Balachandar Kesavan, Antonio Marcedone, Merry Ember Mou
ASIACRYPT 2022
From discrete-log to lattices: maybe the real lessons were our broken schemes along the way? [pdf] [talk]
Alex Bienstock, Allison Bishop, Eli Goldin, Garrison Grogan, Victor Lecomte
CFAIL 2020

Service

Program Committee

CRYPTO: 2027
EUROCRYPT: 2027
ITCS: 2026
ASIACRYPT: 2026
ITC: 2026 (Local Chair + Program Committee)
CFAIL: 2026 (Program Chair), 2025

Teaching

Teaching Assistant Roles

Fall 2024: Basic Algorithms (NYU CSCI-UA 310 - taught by Rotem Oshman)
Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026: Fundamental Algorithms (NYU CSCI-GA 1170 - taught by Yevgeniy Dodis)
Fall 2022: Basic Algorithms (NYU CSCI-UA 310 - taught by Marshall Ball and Oded Regev)
Spring 2022: Fundamental Algorithms (NYU CSCI-GA 1170 - taught by Chee Yap)
Spring 2021: Advanced Algorithms (Columbia COMS 4995-8 - taught by Alexandr Andoni)
Fall 2020: Computer Science Theory (Columbia COMS 3261 - taught by Tal Malkin)
Spring 2020: Computer Science Theory (Columbia COMS 3261 - taught by Mihalis Yannakakis)
Fall 2019: Intro to Cryptography (Columbia COMS 4261 - taught by Tal Malkin)
Fall 2018, Spring 2019: Advanced Programming (Columbia COMS 3157 - taught by Jae Woo Lee)

Game Dev

I make video games in my free time. Here are some projects I've worked on:

My biggest project, Herman Electro: Explore six puzzle-packed floors and help Herman and his friends reach the outside world. A circuit-based puzzle roguelike. Available on Steam!
Hearsay: A daily word game where you solve a jigsaw puzzle made out of a famous quote.
Spooky Caverns: With a ghost hot on your heels in the Spooky Caverns, your chances of escape are slim. You'll need to run to the right, pick up powerful items, and find enough keys to unlock a portal out of the depths. A Spooky 2D Jam '23 entry.
Become Tree: start as a small tree, grow your roots, and become a much bigger tree. A Global Game Jam 2023 entry.
Time to Work: a story about time travel and mundane mistakes.
Date at the Museum: a two-player game where you predict how your partner would respond to a prompt.
Synesthesia Spectrum: a subaquatic race to the finish. Flip gravity and mess with your opponent.

Contact Info

Email: first-name . last-name (at) princeton.edu;