@chelseakomlo joined ZF in August 2019, as a core engineer and researcher, and was later appointed to the role of Chief Scientist, leading ZF’s research efforts. Prior to joining ZF, Chelsea worked as an engineer on open source security and privacy projects, most notably Tor and the Off-The-Record (OTR) messaging protocol.
During her time with ZF, Chelsea’s primary research focus has been threshold signature schemes. She collaborated with Ian Goldberg at the University of Waterloo to create FROST, a Schnorr threshold signature protocol that is compatible with Zcash shielded transactions, plugging an key functionality gap for shielded ZEC.
Chelsea has worked with others across the industry to standardize the FROST signing protocol, which was recently published as an RFC. Most recently she has been participating in the NIST standardization effort for threshold signature schemes.
Chelsea is leaving ZF to take up another research role, focusing on post-quantum cryptography. However, she remains an avid supporter of the Zcash mission, and will remain involved as a member of the ZF’s Technical Advisory Board.
On behalf of the Zcash Foundation team, and Zcash ecosystem as a whole, I want to thank Chelsea for her contributions to Zcash and the broader mission of financial privacy. While we are sad to see her leave, we are thrilled that she has found an opportunity to advance her already-distinguished career! 