Meet Our Team: 10 Questions for Andreea Buterchi
“Meet Our Team” is a blog series where we introduce you to the people behind Veridise and make our company what it is. Today we talk to our VP of Engineering Andreea Buterchi.
Andreea holds BSc and MSc degrees in Computer Science from the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania. Her professional and research interests focus on securing the blockchain ecosystem using formal methods.
Before joining Veridise, Andreea has been with the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems and Amazon, where she worked on formal methods and data analysis projects.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Who’s Andreea Buterchi?
What defines me most at the moment, I would say, is my work, which I’m very passionate about. Being a VP of Engineering at Veridise has provided me with the right setting to grow and apply the knowledge I gained from my academic and professional experience.
Apart from that, I consider myself a creative person, with love for nature, photography and art in all of its forms. Some interesting facts about me are that I enjoy playing foosball and that I particularly like solving German grammar exercises — it feels like solving math equations and it’s fun!
How did you get involved with blockchain security?
My journey into the blockchain world started during my undergraduate studies when my supervisor and I were brainstorming ideas for my Bachelor’s thesis. As I always liked programming languages and logic, the idea of working on formal verification sounded good. But what to apply formal verification to? As it happened, my supervisor was interested in blockchain security, so he proposed formally verifying Bitcoin Script, the language behind Bitcoin transactions. Discovering this area was a huge revelation to me! That was the moment when I first learned what smart contracts, transactions, blocks, or miners are and understood the importance of blockchain security.
As a Master’s student, I wanted to delve as deeply as possible into this field and continued my research. After graduation, I joined the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems as a research intern on formal methods. During my internship, I had the chance to attend a conference called Rigorous Methods for Smart Contracts. It was at the conference that I realized how vast the research and interest in the field already were!
After completing my internship, I kept reading research papers on this topic, and this is how I came across Veridise. Funny or not, after reading a paper written by the founders of Veridise, I ended up applying here! What really attracted me was their mission statement, which was totally aligned with my interests and prior research.
What is the one thing you find most fascinating about blockchain and Web3?
My answer might surprise, or perhaps not. But what I find fascinating about Web3, is its ability to empower people! At the conferences I attend, I often witness people’s excitement when they present their projects. Web3 truly provides individuals with a means of addressing yesterday’s problems, or even better, envisioning tomorrow’s use cases. I’m fascinated by how such complex technology, at its core, is capable of fostering such a vibrant community.
What’s the thing that you find most challenging in your line of work?
Web3 is evolving at an incredibly rapid pace. Overnight, you may discover new techniques, tools, protocols, and more. I find that the most challenging aspect of my job is staying up-to-date with the content generated by this dynamic community. As someone involved in developing Veridise’s tools, I constantly need to monitor the research and discoveries in this field.
Why should blockchain developers care about formal verification?
The answer is simple: Formal verification is a technique known for providing the strongest guarantees regarding software correctness. It can be used to prove the absence of bugs by rigorously checking all possible execution paths of a computer program. Blockchain developers should particularly care about formal verification because it assures them that their protocols are free from vulnerabilities, leaving no room for potential attack vectors — and as we all know, there are plenty of them out in the wild.
What can we find you doing when you’re not working?
After work, I usually head out for a bike ride. It’s my way of unwinding. Sometimes, I even pause my ride, sit on a bench, and simply soak in the city vibes. I love observing people and what they do. When I’m not exploring the city, you can often find me at home, tending to my flowers (I take particular pride in nurturing my two baby lemon trees), building Legos, reading, or trying out one of the million recipes I’ve saved on Instagram or YouTube.
And, of course, I also love to travel. So a few times a year, you can find me wandering the streets of cities that were once on my travel bucket list.
What’s one book you’ll never stop recommending to people?
One of the books I particularly like is “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how their brain works and why we make the decisions we do every day.
Are there any blockchain/crypto/DeFi projects, or particular pieces of technology that excite you? What are they?
Regenerative Finance (ReFi) is something that caught my eye lately.
How do you feel about AI — is it the beginning of a new era, the end of humanity as we know it or somewhere inbetween?
I don’t think I have a well-defined opinion about AI. Of course, being a person with a background in computer science, I’m aware of the advancements in AI — and I have to admit, it’s fascinating! So, to answer the question, I’d say it is somewhere in between, but as a person that only occasionally says “Hi!” to ChatGPT or Bard, I would not advise anyone to take my word for granted.
Pineapple on pizza: yes or no?
I haven’t tried pineapple on pizza before… I guess it tastes like Prosciutto e Melone?
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