Research Interests
Privacy-by-default systems design using confidential computing and applied cryptography.
About
I am a PhD candidate in Computer Science at William & Mary, specializing in systems security. I work with Prof. Stephen Herwig in the Extending Trust in Computing Lab (etclab). My research focuses on building systems that embed privacy guarantees by design, using confidential computing, applied cryptography, and distributed and networked systems to make privacy the default rather than an opt-in feature.
Publications
Akeso: Bringing Post-Compromise Security to Cloud Storage
Lily Gloudemans, Pankaj Niroula, Aashutosh Poudel, Collin MacDonald, Stephen Herwig
Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs) 2025
Paper | Artifact
Lily Gloudemans, Pankaj Niroula, Aashutosh Poudel, Collin MacDonald, Stephen Herwig
Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs) 2025
Paper | Artifact
Mazu: A Zero Trust Architecture for Service Mesh Control Planes
Aashutosh Poudel, Pankaj Niroula, Collin MacDonald, Lily Gloudemans, Stephen Herwig
European Workshop on Systems Security (EuroSec) 2025
Paper | ACM DL
Aashutosh Poudel, Pankaj Niroula, Collin MacDonald, Lily Gloudemans, Stephen Herwig
European Workshop on Systems Security (EuroSec) 2025
Paper | ACM DL
See my full publication list on Google Scholar.
Service
Paper Sub-Reviewer
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS) 2025
IEEE Secure Development Conference (SecDev) 2024
Artifact Evaluation Committee Reviewer
USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Sec) 2025
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) 2024
Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC) 2024, 2023
Teaching Experience
Teaching Assistant
William & Mary
Data Structures and Algorithm (Spring 2023, Spring 2024)
Systems Programming (Fall 2024)
Guest Lecturing Experience
William & Mary
Data Structures and Algorithm (CSCI-251)
• Trees (Spring 2024)
System Programming (CSCI-415)
• Command Line Parsing in C (Fall 2024)
Instructor
King's College, Kathmandu (2021-2022)
Discrete Structures
Programming in C
Herald College, Kathmandu (2021-2022)
Collaborative Software Development
Internet Software Architecture
IT Training Nepal, Kathmandu (2019)
Web Application Development with Python
Industry Experience
Tech Lead and Co-Founder
Eydean Inc.
Aug 2018 - Jan 2021
Emerging AI technologies and tailored open source BI solutions like ERP, CRM
Eydean Inc.
Aug 2018 - Jan 2021
Emerging AI technologies and tailored open source BI solutions like ERP, CRM
Associate Software Engineer
LIS Nepal Pvt. Ltd.
Feb 2018 - Aug 2018
Development center for Logic Information Systems (Columbus, Ohio)
Focused on Business Intelligence (BI) tools for Retail Enterprises across the globe
LIS Nepal Pvt. Ltd.
Feb 2018 - Aug 2018
Development center for Logic Information Systems (Columbus, Ohio)
Focused on Business Intelligence (BI) tools for Retail Enterprises across the globe
Developer Intern
BI Solutions
Aug 2017 - Nov 2017
Open source based Business Intelligence solutions to enterprises in Nepal
BI Solutions
Aug 2017 - Nov 2017
Open source based Business Intelligence solutions to enterprises in Nepal
Education
PhD in Computer Science
School of Computing, Data Science & Physics, William & Mary
2023 - ongoing
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Information Technology
St. Xavier's College, Kathmandu (Tribhuvan University)
2013 - 2018