About me

I am currently a PostDoc (Part-time) at COSIC, KU Leuven working with Prof. Bart Preneel and co-founder and Director at Soundness labs.

During my PhD, I have been mainly working on privacy-enhancing techniques in distributed systems, with a focus on their applications on Blockchain space (Link to my Thesis). I have collaborated on multiple research papers and gained valuable experience working with global teams and leading companies. In summer 2023, I was a research intern at Mysten Labs, cryptography team.

These days, I am primarily focused on Accountable Threshold Signatures, Traceable Secret Sharing and more efficient decentralized zk proofs verification layers. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions or for collaboration opportunities.

News

• 2025-11-10 I will be serving as a PC member at ACM CCS 2026, Applied crypto.
• 2025-09-02 Keyed-Verification Anonymous Credentials with Highly Efficient Partial Disclosure got accepted to IACR CiC, Volume 2, Issue 3.
• 2025-06-18 Awarded a Sui Foundation Academic Research grant.

Upcoming Events

• 2025-11-13 To attend and give a talk at Cybersecurity Industry Day, Mechelen, Belgium.

Past Events

Pls refer to CV.

Current Students

• Hossein Moghaddas (COSIC, KU Leuven), PhD co-supervisor.
• Hossein Hafezi Moghaddas (COSIC, KU Leuven), Free researcher.

Past Students

• Kiran Deep Ghosh (ISI Kolkata), master thesis supervisor -> PhD at RUB, Germany
• Raphaël Deknop (KU Leuven), Intern -> Master in Physics (KU Leuven)
• Theresa Wakonig (ETH Zurich), master thesis co-supervisor -> ETH Zurich

Extra

How to pronounce my name: First name: MAH-dee (with the emphasis on the first syllable; “MAH” as in “ma” from “mama” and “dee” as in the letter “D”). Last name: Seh-dah-GHAHT (with the emphasis on the third syllable; “Seh” as in “set”, “dah” as in “dah” from “duh”, and “GHAHT” with a hard “G” like in “go” and “hat” but with a slightly more open “a” sound)