I am a CS PhD student at Yale University advised by Prof. Fan Zhang. Before that, I obtained my Bachalor's degree from Yao Class, Tsinghua University in 2023, where I was advised by Prof. Yifan Song.

My research interests lie in applied cryptography and security, including but not limited to:

  • Blockchain security
  • Cyptographic protocols and their applications
  • Mechanism design

wenhao dot wang at yale dot edu  /  Google Scholar  /  LinkedIn

profile photo

Publications

Spam MEV publication thumbnail
In Submission

Blockspace Under Pressure: An Analysis of Spam MEV on High-Throughput Blockchains

Wenhao Wang, Aditya Saraf, Lioba Heimbach, Kushal Babel, and Fan Zhang.

Currently in submission.

UltraFold publication thumbnail
In Submission

UltraFold: Efficient Distributed BaseFold from Packed Interleaved Merkle Trees

Wenhao Wang and Fan Zhang.

Currently in submission.

VAR publication thumbnail
In Submission

Verifiable Aggregate Receipts with Applications to User Engagement Auditing

Ioannis Kaklamanis, Wenhao Wang, Harjasleen Malvai, and Fan Zhang.

Currently in submission.

Cirrus publication thumbnail
NDSS 2026

Cirrus: Performant and Accountable Distributed SNARK

Wenhao Wang, Fangyan Shi, Dani Vilardell, and Fan Zhang.

In NDSS Symposium 2026, San Diego, CA, USA.

ProoPhi publication thumbnail
FC 2025

Prooφ: A ZKP Market Mechanism

Wenhao Wang, Lulu Zhou, Aviv Yaish, Fan Zhang, Ben Fisch, and Benjamin Livshits.

In Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2025.

Blogs

Essay March 16, 2026

Frontier AI Is Already Changing Security and Systems Research

AI first felt useful to me as a writing assistant. Over the last two years, that changed: it started helping with proof ideas, pseudocode-to-code translation, implementation audits, and research iteration itself.

Awards

Nathan Hale Associates Fellowship
Yale University • 2025
ZK Grant
Ethereum Foundation • 2024
For "Cirrus: Performant and Robust Distributed SNARK Generation via Computation Delegation"
ZK Fellowship
Matter Labs • 2023

Experience

Summer Research Intern
Category Labs, Inc. May 2025 - Aug. 2025

Teaching

Teaching Assistant, 2026 Spring, Web3, Blockchains, and Cryptocurrencies (CPSC 466/566), Yale University Teaching Assistant, 2025 Fall, Verifiable, Private, Decentralized Computing in the Age of AI (CPSC 441/541), Yale University Teaching Assistant, 2025 Spring, Web3, Blockchains, and Cryptocurrencies (CPSC 466/566), Yale University
© 2025-2026 Wenhao Wang  |  wenhao dot wang at yale dot edu  |  CV  |  Back to Top