jossduff.com

Hi!

I graduated with highest honors from Lehigh University in 2026 with a M.S. in Computer Science.

I strongly believe in the potential for blockchain technology to create a more fair financial system.

I'm based in Boston, Mass, USA.

You can reach me at jduff360@gmail.com.

github linkedin resume twitter

Experience

Lehigh University, PA, USA

Jun 2025 – May 2026

Research Assistant and Student

Member of Lehigh Blockchain and Scalable Systems & Software research groups
Wrote thesis and implementation on a framework for proving regulatory compliance while maintaining privacy (Demo )

Submitted to SBC (Science of Blockchain Conference)

Writing grants for continued research

Responded to the U.S. Dept. of Treasury RFC on digital assets (our response)
GPA: 4.0

Sigil L2 - link

Sep 2024 – Sep 2025

Founding Engineer

Built open-source SP1 prover network for <10% the cost of Succinct's prover network
Maintained OP Stack rollup with ZK execution proving via op-succinct
Developed easy-to-use docker-compose setup for running RPC or Sequencer nodes

Envio - link

Oct 2023 – Sep 2024

Software Engineer

Implemented Ethereum JSON RPC read interface on custom database
Extended EVM-compatible custom database to support alternate VMs and chains
Deployed and maintained production, staging, and backup Kubernetes clusters on bare-metal servers

Projects

zkSTF - link

April 2026

Exploring throughput increases for BFT consensus by replacing state transition function re-execution validation with a zero-knowledge proof

tbex - link

Dec 2025

Locally hosted terminal block explorer for Ethereum

Warp Toad - link

Jun 2025

🏆 Won Noir Hack 3rd Place + Grant Recipient

Cross-chain privacy mixer enabling anonymous deposits and withdrawals across chains
Bridged Merkle roots to and from Aztec L2 and EVM chains

Ultra Anon - link

Apr 2025

🏆 Won ETH Denver + Celebrity Judge Award

Privacy token with public and private state featuring an extremely viral anonymity set and full plausible deniability

Cafe Justo - link

Jan – Dec 2022

🏆 Won Best Overall — Lehigh CS Capstone Fair

Blockchain solution for tracking wages of coffee laborers in El Salvador
Deployed Solidity smart contract on Ethereum Goerli testnet and subgraph on theGraph network

Community & Teaching

Guest Lecture — Kutztown University, PA, USA

2026

Lecture on Layer 2 scaling solutions

Panel Moderator — Devconnect Buenos Aires

2025

"The Privacy Stack: Who Sees What, When and With Whose Consent"

Guest Lecture — Lehigh University, PA, USA

2022

Lecture on smart contract domain-specific languages

Lehigh Blockchain Club — President

Oct 2021 – May 2022

Led educational discussions on blockchain and cryptocurrency topics
Recruited 100+ members