Nathan Dauntenhahn (Ph.D. ’16 UIUC) is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Rice University.
Computing systems contain vast amounts of sensitive information, but most systems have numerous layers of abstractions, making it challenging to guarantee high-level security properties. His research identifies fundamental abstraction gaps and closes them with cross-layer solutions. He am most interested in building trustworthy systems software, where a single exploit could compromise the whole system. His research in operating system security has applied two key approaches: 1) decompose systems in ways that enhance trustworthiness and 2) harden them to attack.