I am a lecturer and researcher in Computer Science at EPFL. My research activities are associated with the Scalable Computing Systems laboratory, which is led by Prof. Anne-Marie Kermarrec. Previously, I was with the University of Neuchâtel under the supervision of Prof. Pascal Felber.
My research focuses on systems solutions for enhancing security, privacy, efficiency and frugality in distributed systems, nowadays applied to machine learning.
Service
- 2024: METIS'24 (Keynote speaker), NETYS'24 (PC), Middleware'24 (External reviewer), IEEE Trans. on Dependable and Secure Computing (ad-hoc review), EuroDW'24 (PC), IEEE Trans. on Information Forensics and Security (ad-hoc review), SBSeg (PC), WTICG@SBRC (PC)
- 2023: SRDS'23 (PC),
EuroSys'23 (Submission chair), DICG@Middleware (PC), WTICG@SBSeg (PC).
- 2022: EuroSys'22 (Submission chair),
DICG@Middleware'22 (PC),
SF@SBSeg'22 (PC).
- 2021: IEEE Internet Computing (ad-hoc review).
- Assistant reviewer:
PODC'16,
SRDS'16,
DSN'18,
Middleware'18,
PPoPP'19,
EuroSys'19,
ATC'19,
DSN'19,
SRDS'19,
Middleware'19,
ASPLOS'19,
DSN'20,
OSDI'20,
Middleware'20,
PODC'21,
EuroSys'21,
DSN'23,
EuroSys'24.
Publications
International Conferences and Workshops
Noiseless privacy-preserving decentralized learning (to appear)
Sayan Biswas, Mathieu Even, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Laurent Massoulié, Rafael Pires, Rishi Sharma, Martijn de Vos
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS '25), The 25th. Washington DC - USA, 2025
Revisiting Ensembling in One-Shot Federated Learning (to appear)
Youssef Allouah, Akash Dhasade, Rachid Guerraoui, Nirupam Gupta, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Rafael Pinot, Rafael Pires, Rishi Sharma
Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024), 38th Annual Conference on, Vancouver - Canada, 2024
Epidemic Learning: Boosting decentralized learning with randomized communication
Martijn de Vos,
Sadegh Farhadkhani,
Rachid Guerraoui,
Anne-Marie Kermarrec,
Rafael Pires,
Rishi Sharma
Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023), 37th Annual Conference on, New Orleans - USA, 2023
Get more for less in decentralized learning systems
Akash Dhasade,
Anne-Marie Kermarrec,
Rafael Pires,
Rishi Sharma,
Milos Vujasinovic and
Jeffrey Wigger
Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS '23), 43rd IEEE International Conference on, Hong Kong - China, 2023
Decentralized learning made easy with DecentralizePy
Akash Dhasade,
Anne-Marie Kermarrec,
Rafael Pires,
Rishi Sharma and
Milos Vujasinovic
Machine Learning and Systems (EuroMLSys'23), 3rd Workshop on, Rome - Italy, 2023
TEE-based decentralized recommender systems: The raw data sharing redemption
Akash Dhasade,
Nevena Dresevic,
Anne-Marie Kermarrec,
Rafael Pires
Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS '22), 36th IEEE International, Lyon - France, 2022
NVCache: A plug-and-play NVMM-based I/O booster for legacy systems
Rémi Dulong,
Rafael Pires,
Andreia Correia,
Valerio Schiavoni,
Pedro Ramalhete,
Pascal Felber,
Gaël Thomas
Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN '21). 51st IEEE International Conference on, Taipei - Taiwan, 2021
Trust management as a service: Enabling trusted execution in the face of Byzantine stakeholders
Franz Gregor,
Wojciech Ozga,
Sébastien Vaucher,
Rafael Pires,
Do Le Quoc,
Sergei Arnautov,
André Martin,
Valerio Schiavoni,
Pascal Felber,
Christof Fetzer
Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN '20). 50th IEEE International Conference on, Valencia - Spain, 2020
Anonymous and confidential file sharing over untrusted clouds
Stefan Contiu,
Sébastien Vaucher,
Rafael Pires,
Marcelo Pasin,
Pascal Felber,
Laurent Réveillère
Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS '19). 38th IEEE International Symposium on, Lyon - France, 2019
Supply chain malware targets SGX: Take care of what you sign
Andrei Mogage,
Rafael Pires,
Vlad Crăciun,
Pascal Felber,
Emanuel Onica
Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS '19). 38th IEEE International Symposium on, Lyon - France, 2019
Security, performance and energy trade-offs of hardware-assisted memory protection mechanisms
Christian Göttel,
Rafael Pires,
Isabelly Rocha,
Sébastien Vaucher,
Pascal Felber,
Marcelo Pasin,
Valerio Schiavoni
Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS '18). 37th IEEE International Symposium on, Salvador - Brazil, 2018
CYCLOSA: Decentralizing private web search through SGX-based browser extensions
Rafael Pires,
David Goltzsche,
Sonia Ben Mokhtar,
Sara Bouchenak,
Antoine Boutet,
Pascal Felber,
Rüdiger Kapitza,
Marcelo Pasin,
Valerio Schiavoni
Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS '18). 38th IEEE International Conference on, Vienna - Austria, 2018
SGX-aware container orchestration for heterogeneous clusters
Sébastien Vaucher,
Rafael Pires,
Pascal Felber,
Marcelo Pasin,
Valerio Schiavoni,
Christof Fetzer
Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS '18). 38th IEEE International Conference on, Vienna - Austria, 2018
IBBE-SGX: Cryptographic group access control using trusted execution environments
Stefan Contiu,
Rafael Pires,
Sébastien Vaucher,
Marcelo Pasin,
Pascal Felber,
Laurent Réveillère
Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN '18). 48th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on, Luxembourg, 2018
SecureStreams: A reactive middleware framework for secure data stream processing
A lightweight MapReduce framework for secure processing with SGX
SecureCloud: Secure big data processing in untrusted clouds
Secure content-based routing using intel software guard extensions
[Portuguese]
Manipulador cartesiano de cadeia cinemática mista - desenvolvimento eletroeletrônico e computacional para a geração, execução e correção de trajetórias de soldagem
Rafael Pereira Pires, Ivan Luiz Hubert, Cassiano Bonin, Vitor Pinto da Cunha, Nelso Gauze Bonacorso
Soldagem (CONSOLDA'14). Congresso Panamericano de, São Paulo - Brazil, 2014
[Portuguese]
Manipulador cartesiano de cadeia cinemática mista - desenvolvimento mecânico para a execução de movimentos de oscilação da tocha na soldagem a arco elétrico
Ivan Luiz Hubert, Rafael Pereira Pires, Vitor Pinto da Cunha, Cassiano Bonin, Nelso Gauze Bonacorso
Soldagem (CONSOLDA'14). Congresso Panamericano de, São Paulo - Brazil, 2014
An efficient calibration method for RSSI-based location algorithms
Rafael Pereira Pires,
Lucas Francisco Wanner,
Antônio Augusto Fröhlich
Industrial Informatics (INDIN'08). 6th IEEE International Conference on, Daejeon - South Korea, 2008
A framework for configuration and assembly of routing protocols for wireless ad hoc networks
[Portuguese]
Gestão e monitoração remota de transformadores em redes de distribuição de energia elétricas subterrâneas
F. F. Andrade, J. Coelho, A. A. M. Fröhlich, R. Matos, R. P. Pires, W. S. C. Moreira, V. L. Guimarães
Power Transformers. International Workshop On, V Workspot, Belém - Brazil, 2008
[Portuguese]
Monitoração remota dos transformadores das redes de distribuição de energia elétrica subterrâneas
Fabiano Ferreira Andrade, Jorge Coelho, Roberto de Matos, Antônio A. M. Fröhlich, Rafael Pereira Pires, Vitor L. Guimarães, Celso Ternes Leal, Walério S. C. Moreira
Distribución eléctrica (CLADE'08). Congreso Latinoamericano de, Mar del Plata - Argentina, 2008
Journals
Malware in the SGX supply chain: Be careful when signing enclaves!
[Portuguese]
Técnica da oscilação longitudinal da tocha para o incremento da produção na soldagem em ângulo entre chapas de espessuras dissimilares
[Portuguese]
Evaluation of an RSSI-based location algorithm for wireless sensor networks
Non peer-reviewed
Boosting Asynchronous Decentralized Learning with Model Fragmentation
Sayan Biswas, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Alexis Marouani, Rafael Pires, Rishi Sharma, Martijn de Vos
arXiv, 2024
Secure Aggregation Meets Sparsification in Decentralized Learning
Sayan Biswas, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Rafael Pires, Rishi Sharma, Milos Vujasinovic
arXiv, 2024
Low-Cost Privacy-Aware Decentralized Learning
Sayan Biswas, Davide Frey, Romaric Gaudel, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Dimitri Lerévérend, Rafael Pires, Rishi Sharma, François Taïani
arXiv, 2024
Energy-Aware Decentralized Learning with Intermittent Model Training
Akash Dhasade, Paolo Dini, Elia Guerra, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Marco Miozzo, Rafael Pires, Rishi Sharma, Martijn de Vos
arXiv, 2024
Harnessing Increased Client Participation with Cohort-Parallel Federated Learning
Akash Dhasade, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Tuan-Anh Nguyen, Rafael Pires, Martijn de Vos
arXiv, 2024
Efficient Pyramidal Analysis of Gigapixel Biomedical Images
Marie Reinbigler, Rishi Sharma, Rafael Pires, Elisabeth Brunet, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Catalin Fetita
OpenReview.net, 2024
Boosting Federated Learning in Resource-Constrained Networks
Mohamed Yassine Boukhari, Akash Dhasade, Anne-Marie Kermarrec, Rafael Pires, Othmane Safsafi, Rishi Sharma
arXiv, 2023
National or Regional Conferences, Workshops and Seminars
Distributed systems and trusted execution environments: Trade-offs and challenges (PhD thesis extended abstract)
Rafael Pires
Computer Networks and Distributed Systems (SBRC '20). XXXVIII Brazilian Symposium on, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil, 2020
[Portuguese]
Iniciação científica nos cursos de engenharia mecatrônica - estudo de caso: desenvolvimento de uma IHM para manipuladores de soldagem
[Portuguese]
Projeto de um manipulador dedicado a execução de soldagens
I. L. Hubert, L. C. Kruger, M. C. Campos, N. G. Bonacorso, R. P. Pires
Seminário de Pesquisa, Extensão e Inovação do IFSC (SEPEI'13), Lages - Brazil, 2013
GRADEp: towards pervasive grid executions
Cláudio F. R. Geyer, Luciano C. da Silva, Adenauer C. Yamin, Iara Augustin, Alberto E. S. Filho, Maurício C. Moraes, Rodrigo A. Real, Gustavo C. Frainer, Rafael P. Pires
Grade Computacional e Aplicações (WCGA'05). III Workshop de, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil, 2005
[Portuguese]
Arquitetura de serviços para o portal de compras pervasivo
R. P. Pires, Ricardo Miotto Redin, Rubens Cesar Belusso, João Carlos Damasceno Lima, Iara Augustin
IV Simpósio de Informática da Região Centro do RS (SIRC'05), Santa Maria - Brazil, 2005
[Portuguese]
Comunicação entre componentes da aplicação em ambiente pervasivo
Rafael Pereira Pires, Ricardo Miotto Redin, Rubens Cesar Belusso, João Carlos Damasceno Lima, Iara Augustin
XV Seminário Regional de Informática (SRI'05), Santo Ângelo - Brazil, 2005
[Portuguese]
Análise de alternativas para a apresentação consciente do dispositivo em um ambiente pervasivo
Rubens Cesar Belusso, Rafael Pereira Pires, Ricardo Miotto Redin, João Carlos Damasceno Lima, Iara Augustin
XV Seminário Regional de Informática (SRI'05), Santo Ângelo - Brazil, 2005
[Portuguese]
Análise de alternativas de entrega de dados independente do dispositivo em um ambiente de computação pervasiva
Ricardo Miotto Redin, Rafael Pereira Pires, Rubens Cesar Belusso, João Carlos Damasceno Lima, Iara Augustin
Seminário de Informática (SEMINFO'05), Torres - Brazil, 2005
[Portuguese]
Explorando adaptação dinâmica ao contexto no projeto de aplicações da computação pervasiva
Iara Augustin, João Carlos Damasceno Lima, Marcus Lucas Silva, Rafael Pereira Pires, Ricardo Miotto Redin
III Simpósio de Informática da Região Centro do RS (SIRC'04), Santa Maria - Brazil, 2004
Education
PhD in Computer Science
Distributed systems and trusted execution environments: Trade-offs and challenges
Professional Master in Mechatronics
[Portuguese]
Trajectory planning and adjustment in a welding manipulator
Supervisor: Nelso Gauze Bonacorso
IFSC - Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Santa Catarina, Brazil, 2014
Master in Computer Science
[Portuguese]
A framework for generating routing protocols for ad-hoc wireless networks
Supervisor: Antônio Augusto Medeiros Fröhlich
UFSC - Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, 2009
Bachelor in Computer Science
[Portuguese]
Network connectivity aware communication service in a pervasive environment
Supervisor: Iara Augustin
Co-supervisor: João Carlos Damasceno Lima
UFSM - Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil, 2006
Work experience
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
Lecturer (2024-)
Postdoctoral researcher (2020-2024)
Researcher, teaching assistant.
Lausanne, Switzerland, 2020-
University of Neuchâtel
Scientific staff
Researcher, teaching assistant.
Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 2016-2020
Santa Catarina State Public Prosecutor's Office
Analyst in Information Technology
Analysis of data, equipment and procedures related to Information Technology. Computer and mobile forensics.
Florianópolis, Brazil, 2011-2015
Automatisa Laser Solutions
Systems Analyst
Firmware and CAD (Computer Aided Design) software development for cutting and engraving laser machines. C/C++, ARM, FPGA, Embedded Systems, Kinematics, Communication Protocols.
Florianópolis, Brazil, 2010-2012
Suntech
Systems Developer
Distributed systems, storage, database and communication protocols for lawful data interception. C++, Python and SQL (PostgresSQL).
Florianópolis, Brazil, 2009-2010
Khomp
Systems Developer
Development of firmware and linux device drivers for CTI applications (Computer Telephony Integration). C/C++.
Florianópolis, Brazil, 2009