Professor Bart Preneel of K.U. Leuven heads the COSIC (COmputer Security and Industrial Cryptography) research group. His main research area is information security with a focus on cryptographic algorithms and protocols as well as their applications to both computer and network security, and mobile communications.

He teaches cryptology, network security and coding theory at the K.U.Leuven and was visiting professor at the Ruhr Universitaet Bochum (Germany), the T.U.Graz (Austria), the University of Bergen (Norway), and the Universiteit Gent (Belgium). In '93-'94 he was a research fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. He has taught intensive courses around the world.

He undertakes industrial consulting (Mastercard International, S.W.I.F.T., Proton World International,...), and participates in the work of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC27/WG2.

Professor Preneel is Vice President of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) and co-founder and chairman of LSEC vzw (Leuven Security Excellence Consortium).