SIG

↓

Special
Interest
Group

Pwn

↓

To hack
or "own"
(slang)

↓

For
cool
logo

sig-poh-nee

What do we do?

As the cybersecurity club at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, our mission is to teach students cybersecurity through meetings, competitions, and research.

We're beginner-friendly

We believe cybersecurity should be accessible to all, so we teach everything from the ground up. Our club content is designed to be approached by anyone, regardless of skill, major, or experience.

Our teaching philosophy

We believe that the best way to learn is by doing – so we're not going to lecture you for an hour. Our meetings are typically 15 minutes of presentation followed by 45 minutes of hands-on hacking.

A pie chart showing the 15/45 meeting time breakdown.

Who are we?

SIGPwny is completely student-run and would not be able to support everyone without the contributions from our admin team, helpers, and alumni.

Admin Team

President

Minh Duong he/him

@WhiteHoodHacker

Hi, I'm a senior in CS! I like web and hardware hacking. I keep our meetings and website running :D

President

Pete Stenger

@spicypete

Hi! I'm in my third year in CS. You can find me rock climbing or playing TOTK. Ask me about Python, Ghidra, and automation.

President Emeritus

Anusha Ghosh

@0xk4l1

I'm an MSCS student interested in exploring AI security! Outside of school (and SIGPwny), I love fiber arts and music :D

Admin

Emma Hartman

@lukewarmdaisies

Hi, I'm a junior studying CS! I like learning about operating systems and will talk musical theatre to anyone who will listen!

Admin

George Huebner

@shorden

Sophomore in CS and Physics. Come talk to me about Emacsen, quantum computers, and Nix!

Admin

Jake Mayer

Sophomore in CS interested in web / embedded security and robotics.

Admin

Julius White V

Hello! I am a Junior in Computer Science and Economics. I am interested in personal finance and entrepreneurship!

Admin

Richard Liu

@richyliu

Reverse engineer and pwn enthusiast. When I'm not staring at Ghidra or GDB, I like to spend my free time rock climbing.

Admin

Ronan Boyarski

I'm a freshman studying Computer Science + Philosophy. I spend most of my time on red teaming & malware development.

Admin

Sam Ruggerio

@Surg

Hi! I'm a CS PhD doing theory, but you'll find me in cybersec doing neat things as well!

Helper Team

Helper

Adarsh Krishnan

I'm a freshman in CS + Philosophy interested in symbolic logic and formal methods.

Helper

Akhil Bharanidhar

@akditch

Hi! I'm a sophomore in CS, talk to me about pwn :p

Helper

Cameron Asher

@bigkirbs

Freshman math major who does web dev.

Helper

Daniel Wang

@meow

Hi! I'm a junior studying Computer Engineering interested in web exploitation and reverse engineering.

Helper

Emma Shu

Hello! I'm a sophomore in CS + Linguistics, feel free to come share any language learning tips or tricks you know!

Helper

Henry Qiu

@CBCicada

Freshman in CompEng, interested in hardware and embedded systems. Currently doing CTFs as a hobby.

Helper

Jupiter Peng

Just a programmer

Helper

Kyler Norr

Social chair, Computer Science and Astrophysics, Computational Astrophysics and Software Engineering

Helper

Louis Asanaka

Hey! I'm a junior in CS, interested in web / game hacking and operating systems!

Helper

Nikhil Date

@TENSOR

I am a freshman in CS interested in rev, pwn, and crypto. I also play the piano.

Helper

Sagnik Chakraborty

@quaternion2112

I love making computers do weird things

Alumni

Ex-President 2019

Ian Klatzco

@ian5v

security consultant

Ex-Officer 2020

Ankur Sundara

@arxenix

Ex-Officer 2020

Dillon Korman

@DrDinosaur

Leech 2020

Jesse Wang

@jjwang11

Ex-Helper 2020

Joshua Park

@_dingu

Security Analyst

Ex-President 2021

Joseph Ravichandran

@0xjprx

microarchitectural security @ MIT

Ex-Admin 2021

kuilin

@thekuilin

grad student @ gatech

UIUCTF Infra 2021

YiFei Zhu

@zhuyifei1999

Playing with the Linux kernel @ Google

Ex-Research Director 2022

Chris Kauchak

@2much4u

Ex-Admin 2022

Faisal Khalid

@Chief

Ex-President 2022

Nathan Farlow

@0x1337cafe

Ex-Helper 2022

Nicholas Husin

@NicholasHusin

SWE / SRE @ Google

Ex-President 2022

Thomas Quig

@Thomas_Quig

privacy @ apple

Ex-Admin 2024

Anakin Dey

@spamakin

Hello! I'm a senior in math and my main interest in cybersecurity is crypto! No, not that crypto, the other one.

Ex-Admin 2024

Hassam Uddin

@Heasummn

Hey I'm Hassam! I'm a junior in CS interested in all things cryptography, theory, math, and compilers.

Ex-Helper 2024

Kevin Higgs

@kmh

Security Researcher @ Trail of Bits