Elkana Tovey

PhD Student · Department of Computer Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Advised by Yossi Gilad

I am a doctoral student in computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where I work under the supervision of Yossi Gilad. My research is in applied cryptography and secure, scalable systems, with a focus on secure computation, differential privacy, and private machine learning. I build provably correct, privacy-preserving protocols using tools such as zero-knowledge proofs, homomorphic encryption, and oblivious computation.

I completed my B.Sc. in Computer Science and Mathematics (2021) and my M.Sc. in Computer Science (2023), both at the Hebrew University. I have published at ACM CCS on metadata-private messaging and anonymous payments. I previously interned as a Research Scientist at IBM Research, and this summer I am joining Microsoft Research Cambridge as a Research Intern.

News

Publications

AuditPay: Anonymous Payments with Restricted Monitoring

Elkana Tovey, Yossi Gilad, Aviv Zohar

ACM CCS 2026 (to appear)

Distributed PIR: Scaling Private Messaging via the Users' Machines

Elkana Tovey, Jonathan Weiss, Yossi Gilad

ACM CCS 2024

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Provably scalable secure and private systems using ZKPs, FHE, and oblivious computation.

2023 – present

M.Sc. in Computer Science

Hebrew University of Jerusalem — GPA 95.6

Metadata-private communication systems via secure distributed computation, homomorphic encryption, and PIR.

2021 – 2023

B.Sc. in Computer Science and Mathematics

Hebrew University of Jerusalem — GPA 85.1

2017 – 2021

Experience

Research Scientist Intern

Microsoft Research — Cambridge, UK

Summer 2026

Research Scientist Intern

IBM Research — Israel

Engineered a Go-based reverse-proxy library enabling secure TCP/mTLS communication through firewalls for encrypted inter-cloud connectivity without application-level changes.

Jun – Oct 2023

Teaching Assistant

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Current: Operating Systems, Introduction to Cryptography.
Previous: Introduction to Networks, Machine Learning, Data Privacy.

2019 – present

Awards