Julia Len
Assistant Professor
UNC Chapel Hill
I am an assistant professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My research interests are broadly in applied cryptography and computer security, with recent topics focusing on interoperable end-to-end encrypted messaging, abuse prevention for secure messaging, and authenticated encryption. See my research page for more information.
I co-lead the Cryptography Group with Saba Eskandarian. Check out our website for more information about cryptography research and courses happening at UNC Chapel Hill.
I’m recruiting Ph.D. students at UNC Chapel Hill for Fall 2026. If you’re interested, list me as a potential faculty member in your application.
Teaching
COMP 790-188 Topics in Applied Cryptography Fall 2025
History
Before starting at UNC, I was a METEOR postdoc at MIT working with Henry Corrigan-Gibbs. I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at Cornell University in 2024, where I was advised by Tom Ristenpart. I graduated from UC San Diego in June 2018 with a B.S. in Computer Science, where I was fortunate to work with Mihir Bellare. During my Ph.D., I was also fortunate to intern at Zoom with Antonio Marcedone and at Microsoft Research Redmond with Esha Ghosh and Melissa Chase.
Service
I was or am a program committee member for: IEEE S&P 2026, USENIX Security 2025, CATS 2023.