It's your old pal Dr. Sarang Noether again! I'm good to go for another three months of research and development work for the Monero Research Lab. If you've been tracking the updates from my previous monthly reports, you know that I've been busy with a lot of projects to keep Monero on the cutting edge.

This month has been unique, since I wasn't supported by the Forum Funding System as usual. Instead, I've been teaching a summer cryptography course for the Duke University Talent Identification Program, where gifted youngsters sign up to take challenging university-level courses in their areas of interest. It's a full-time job for the students and instructors; the course runs all day, every weekday, for three weeks (with a week of staff training before it begins, totaling one month). Students in high school don't normally get to see how unbelievably cool applied cryptography is, so programs like this are essential for inspiring the next generations of mathematicians, computer scientists, and cryptographers; projects like Monero need talent! Because the course is so dynamic, my notes and materials get updated constantly; but never fear! They'll all be posted to GitHub once the course ends, so anyone who's interested in the history and present-day use of cryptography can learn too. In the interest of disclosure, I was compensated (but by no means extravagantly!) for my time by Duke University, including room and board.

Please take a look at my previous monthly reports for full details on my research activity; I've contributed my efforts to many Monero endeavors. Bulletproofs are a monumental and important task, and certainly the most visible project I've led so far; we've been working on them since the last half of last year, but it's a huge undertaking. We were the first distributed asset project to attempt a full deployment of these awesome new range proofs, and that means we're blazing a kickass trail. Lots of math, prototyping, coding, analysis, testing, and optimizing has gone into them. Even now, at the final review stage, we're still finding ways to make transactions smaller and faster. Less visible and shiny projects have included new research into refunds, signatures, transaction security, and more.

Every day brings something new when it comes to research. There is always a flurry of new academic work to stay on top of, new threats to analyze, cutting-edge ideas to dive into, and more. My labmate and I put together a brief roadmap that highlights some of the directions we want to take our research. But don't look at that list as all-inclusive or even a guarantee of what you'll see in a future release. The nature of research and development is fluid and intellectually risky. Many (most?) wild ideas end up not working, or aren't right for the project for one reason or another. But some are! The point of the Lab is to take a bunch of crazy ideas, figure out what sticks, and make them happen. It's a grand plan that has been, in my humble opinion, a huge success for the project and one of many things that makes Monero stand out among other projects.

As before, I've set this funding request at my interpretation of fair market compensation of an independent Ph.D. researcher. I use a window average and my best judgment for the exchange rate, understanding that it may fluctuate during the funding period. The amount is set at 250 XMR (any changes to that amount will be noted here as needed; none so far). I work hard to return value to the community for the value you provide here.

I'm always available to answer questions or take suggestions, comments, or complaints. Feel free to respond to this funding post, the accompanying post in r/Monero, or on the freenode IRC channel #monero-research-lab where we talk research. And finally, a huge round of applause to the community for being the engine that drives the Lab and the Monero Project forward. Onwards!