Pratham Hegde

Pratham Hegde is a cybersecurity graduate student at ASU, where he completed his undergraduate degree and is currently pursuing his Master's in Cybersecurity. He is a recognized Grand Challenges Scholar with a research focus spanning systems security, applied cryptography, and large-scale security analysis.

Pratham's research contributions include work at the ASU SEFCOM Lab under Professor Yan Shoshitaishvili, where his Barrett Honors Thesis focused on automated security analysis of modern web applications. 

At ASU's Applied Cryptography Lab under Professor Chenkai Weng, Pratham works on zero-knowledge proof systems applied to machine learning, specifically on verifiable computation techniques that allow model adaptation to be proven correct without exposing underlying parameters.

Pratham is also an active maintainer of gittuf, an OpenSSF project hosted at NYU's Secure Systems Lab, where he contributes to building a security layer for Git repositories. 

Outside of research, Pratham has contributed in applied engineering roles. As a Web Experience Designer for ASU's University College, He redesigned ASU University College's web presence from the ground up, building responsive interfaces and tightening up backend workflows.

He has also been involved in leadership and academic communities as a Fulton Ambassador, named a Spring 2026 Fulton IMPACT Awardee. He served as President of the Indian Students' Association at ASU for the 2025-26 academic year and has held executive roles in CS+Social Good at ASU.