Maria Eichlseder is assistant professor of Cryptography at Graz University of Technology. Her research interests include the design and cryptanalysis of symmetric cryptographic algorithms, such as hash functions and authenticated encryption algorithms and their underlying primitives. She co-designed Ascon, a lightweight authenticated cipher that is among the winners of the CAESAR competition. She defended her Ph.D. sub auspiciis praesidentis in 2018, for which she received an award of excellence from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and a sponsorship prize of the Technology and Society Forum. Prior, she studied Computer Science and Technical Mathematics at Graz University of Technology.