I am broadly interested in designing algorithms, especially, distributed algorithms. More recently, I have been interested in what I call distributed trust where several agents (or nodes, or processors) will have to collaborate with each other to solve a common problem. The challenge is that some of the agents may be malicious (aka Byzantine) and therefore break away from the protocol. So the good agents must build sufficient checks and balances (or trust but verify mechanisms) within the protocol design in order to ensure that the goal is achieved despite the presence of Byzantine agents. Of course, these notions are not new. They have been around since the early 80's when Lamport, Pease, and Shostak introduced the Byzantine Generals Problem. Traditionally, the focus has been on Agreement, leader election, coin tossing, state machine replication and a few other such canonical problems. My current interest is in widening the scope of such Byzantine resilient protocols. I like this field of distributed trust for two main reasons. Firstly, it is hugely important. For example, blockchains, distributed ledgers and cryptocurrencies are examples of distributed trust applications that are currently in the spotlight. I believe that there is scope for a much wider class of applications under the ambit of distributed trust. Secondly, the algorithms and protocols in this space are quite subtle and elegant. In fact, designing algorithms for distributed trust contexts can entail a good bit of drama between the good and bad agents. Let me know if this sounds interesting to you. I am always looking to connect with others of similar interests.