Hi, I am a PhD candidate at EPFL, Switzerland, since fall 2021, working on confidential computing for RISC-V, advised by Prof. Edouard Bugnion and Prof. Thomas Bourgeat.
My primary research interests revolve around computer systems security, computer architecture, operating systems, and the RISC-V architecture.
Work Experiences
IBM Research, Zurich - July to Dec 2024
Intel Labs, Bangalore - Jan to June 2021
Processor Architecture Research Intern
Publications
Save what must be saved: Secure Context Switching with Sailor.
USENIX Security 2025
Neelu S. Kalani, Thomas Bourgeat, Guerney D. H. Hunt, and Wojciech Ozga
The Design and Implementation of a Virtual Firmware Monitor.
SOSP 2025
Charly Castes, François Costa, Neelu S. Kalani, Timothy Roscoe, Nate Foster, Thomas Bourgeat and Edouard Bugnion
Rethinking the confidential cloud through a unified low-level abstraction for composable isolation.
ArXiv Preprint 2025
Charly Castes, Adrien Ghosn, Neelu S. Kalani, Yuchen Qian, Marios Kogias and Edouard Bugnion
Kicking the Firmware Out of the TCB with the Miralis Virtual Firmware Monitor.
KISV @ SOSP 2024
Charly Castes, Neelu S. Kalani, Sofia Saltovskaia, Noé Terrier, Abel Vexina Wilkinson and Edouard Bugnion
Creating Trust by Abolishing Hierarchies.
HotOS 2023
Charly Castes, Adrien Ghosn, Neelu S. Kalani, Yuchen Qian, Marios Kogias, Mathias Payer and Edouard Bugnion
A RISC-V Extension to Minimize Privileges of Enclave Runtimes.
SysTEX @ EuroSys 2023
Neelu S. Kalani and Edouard Bugnion
Embracing Homogeneity in Root of Trust Establishment.
SysDW @ SOSP 2023
Neelu S. Kalani
Instruction Criticality based Energy-efficient Hardware Data Prefetching.
IEEE CAL 2021
Neelu S. Kalani and Biswabandan Panda
Run-Jump-Run: Bouquet of Instruction Pointer Jumpers for High Performance Instruction Prefetching.
IPC @ ISCA 2020
Vishal Gupta, Neelu S. Kalani and Biswabandan Panda
Awards
Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (QIF) Europe 2024
Secure Dynamic Root of Trust with FlashPoint
ACM Student Research Competition @ MICRO 2021
Instruction Criticality-based Energy-efficient Hardware Data Prefetching
Patents
Caching based on Branch Instructions in a Processor.
US Patent US2023/0103206A1
Niranjan Soundararajan, Sreenivas Subramoney, Neelu S. Kalani, Vishal Gupta
Selective provisioning of supplementary micro-operation cache resources.
US Patent US2023/0418757A1
Niranjan Soundararajan, Sreenivas Subramoney, Vishal Gupta, Neelu S. Kalani
Mentoring Students
The following is a list of all the students I’ve mentored so far.
Daniel Bucher, Master Thesis, Fall 2025
Isolating Privileged Software on RISC-V
Youssef Mansour, Summer@EPFL Internship, 2025
Implementing a Custom ISA Extension for Privileged Software Isolation on Rocket Core
Mohamed Anas Ennahir, Summer in the Lab Internship, 2025
Performance and Security of RISC-V Security Primitives
Alexandre Meïer Doukhan, Masters Project, 2024
On Software-based solutions for Dynamic Root of Trust on RISC-V
Abel Vexina Wilkinson, Masters Project, 2024
Firmware Virtualization with Mirage
Alexandre Meïer Doukhan, Bachelor Thesis, 2023
Establishing Dynamic Root of Trust for RISC-V
Pavle Janevski, Summer@EPFL Internship, 2023
Providing Remote Attestation for Trust Domains
Teaching Assistantships
The following is a list of the courses I’ve TAed so far. My teaching duties generally revolve around conducting interactive exercise sessions, conducting lab sessions, and preparing quizzes/exercises, etc.
Computer Security, EPFL
Prof. Carmela Troncoso (Fall 2023) and Prof. Edouard Bugnion (Fall 2022)
Advanced Topics on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, EPFL
Prof. Carmela Troncoso (Spring 2023, Spring 2024) and Dr. Theresa Stadler (Spring 2025)
Fundamentals of Computing (Head TA), IIT Kanpur
Prof. Debadatta Mishra (Spring 2021) and Prof. Piyush Rai (Fall 2019)
Computer Architecture , IIT Kanpur
Prof. Biswabandan Panda (Spring 2020)
Invited Talks
The following is a list of the talks I’ve given so far. I’ve also linked some of the slides/posters. 😄
Secure Dynamic Root of Trust with FlashPoint
Qualcomm Research, Amsterdam (Nov 2025)
Save what must be saved: Secure Context Switching with Sailor
USENIX Security 2025, Seattle
Confidential Computing and Trusted Boot
IBM Research, Zurich and Oracle, Zurich (Dec 2024)
A RISC-V Extension to Minimize Privileges of Enclave Runtimes
SysTEX @ EuroSys 2023, Rome
Embracing Homogeneity in Root of Trust Establishment
Lightning Talk at SysDW @ SOSP 2023, Koblenz
Putting the Spotlight on Root of Trust
Workshop focused on New Software Abstractions for Hardware Security Technology, Oct 2023, Monte Verità, Ascona
Run-Jump-Run: Bouquet of Instruction Pointer Jumpers for High Performance Instruction Prefetching
Poster at CWWMCA @ MICRO 2020, Virtual
Time for Consonant Memory Wall Killers
Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (QIF) India 2020 Finalist Talk, Virtual
Extracurriculars
EPFL graduate student association member (EPIC)
2022-2024.
Volunteer for winter school
Conducted a demo and lab session for the computer architecture winter school 2020 (CAWS) on the ChampSim simulator.
Hobbies
I enjoy watching Netflix and reading. When I was younger (don’t we all miss those days), I used to write sort of a philosophical blog. 😁
Coordinates
Email: neelu.kalani@epfl.ch
Office: INN 235 on EPFL Campus, Lausanne, Switzerland