Carlos Cid received his PhD in Mathematics (combinatorial group theory) in 1999 from the Universidade de Brasília, Brazil. He moved to Europe in 2000 to take up a post-doctoral research position at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where he worked on the application of symbolic computation techniques to systems of partial differential equations. In 2001, he joined a network security start-up in Dublin, Ireland, as a software engineer, where he spent the next two and a half years.
His background and experience eventually led him to work in the area of security and cryptography. Carlos spent almost two decades in the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway University of London: he joined in 2003 as a post-doctoral researcher, and left in February 2022 as a full professor. He was the founding director of Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security, and held several teaching, research and administrative roles during his time at the university.
In May 2022, he was appointed Director of Simula UiB, an independent research institute in cryptography and information theory in Bergen, Norway. Since April 2022, he has also been an Adjunct Professor at OIST, where he leads the Applied Cryptography Unit. In May 2026, he became Director of the Centre for Quantum Communication Networks and Applications (QCNA), a national research centre in Norway focused on quantum communication technologies.
Carlos is an experienced researcher and educator in cyber security. As a mathematician and cryptographer, his research has traditionally focused on applying algebraic techniques to symmetric- and public-key cryptanalysis. More recently he has also been working on quantum/post-quantum cryptography and secure computation. Finally, he has also an interest in applications of economics to cyber security, eg applying game-theoretic techniques to study cyber security problems.
Carlos was part of the design team of Classic McEliece, a post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) that was standardised by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in June 2026. Classic McEliece was also a fourth-round finalist in NIST’s Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project. He previously served in the selection committees of the CAESAR and eSTREAM cryptographic competitions. Carlos was the general and programme co-chair of FSE 2014 (London) and SAC 2018 (Calgary), and the programme co-chair of IWSEC 2025 (Fukuoka). He is a co-author of the book “Algebraic Aspects of the Advanced Encryption Standard”.
The Applied Cryptographic Unit is a member of the OIST Center for Quantum Technologies (OCQT).
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