Stefano De Angelis is a Research Scientist at Nethermind specializing in distributed systems, applied cryptography, consensus protocols, and cryptographic proof systems. He is also a visiting researcher at the University of Southampton, focusing on security and dependability in decentralized systems. Stefano earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southampton, supported by the Cyber Security Academy, and an M.Sc. in Engineering of Computer Science (cum laude) from Sapienza University of Rome. His doctoral work focused on benchmarking methods for assessing security and performance tradeoffs in blockchain systems, and he previously worked at the NATO Office of Security in Brussels as a security researcher. Before joining Nethermind, Stefano held a Postdoctoral Researcher role at the University of Southampton and later worked at Algorand as an Applied Scientist and Solution Architect, contributing to sidechain prototypes and decentralized application design. He has also conducted research at the University of Salerno on privacy-preserving cryptographic protocols and zk-SNARK/STARK systems. Since 2021, he has served as a board member and advisor for Bloctopus.