Julian Loss joined the Faculty of Computer Science on October 1, 2025. The newly appointed professor of distributed cryptography conducts research at the interface between cryptography and distributed algorithms. After completing his doctorate at Ruhr University Bochum, the Swiss-born professor first moved to the US and later to Saarbrücken. Now he is delighted to be back in Bochum. “Ruhr University is not only strong in research, I also appreciate the collegial atmosphere here,” he enthuses. “I also find the area beautiful. It's very green, you can quickly get out into nature and at the same time enjoy the advantages of urban life.”
Julian Loss particularly appreciates the numerous opportunities for collaboration—not only in the Faculty of Computer Science, but also in the CASA Cluster of Excellence, short for Cybersecurity in the Age of Large-Scale Attackers, of which he is a member.
Achieve distributed consensus
Julian Loss is specifically concerned with distributed algorithms, i.e., algorithms that run on many computers simultaneously and solve a task together. The central problem is called distributed consensus. “Imagine that people are making different inputs on different computers and ultimately need to arrive at the same output,” explains Loss. “That's easy when everyone is sitting in the same room and can hear each other. But in a network where not everyone may be playing by the rules, it's a challenge.”
A classic example of this application can be found in the field of cryptocurrencies based on blockchain technology. To ensure that everyone in the system knows who has how much money, participants must agree on a transcript of all transactions ever made. Julian Loss is working on algorithms for these and other applications. He determines which tools are needed for specific cryptographic tasks and how best to build them. The consensus algorithms often benefit from modern cryptographic methods, which make the algorithms more efficient and robust.
About the person:
- Since October 2025: Professor of Distributed Cryptography, Ruhr University Bochum
- Since March 2025: Researcher at the blockchain company “Common Prefix”
- 2021 to 2025: Senior Researcher, CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Saarbrücken
- 2021: Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
- 2019 to 2021: Postdoctoral researcher, University of Maryland, USA
- 2018 to 2021: Researcher at the blockchain company “Spacemesh”
- 2016 to 2019: Doctorate, Mathematics, Ruhr University Bochum
- 2011 to 2016: Studies, Computer Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
General note: In case of using gender-assigning attributes we include all those who consider themselves in this gender regardless of their own biological sex.