Background and education
A published Block biography records a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from Dartmouth and master’s and doctoral degrees from MIT.
How the journey developed
Narula worked on distributed systems and at Google before her digital-currency research leadership. Her MIT biography connects that technical background with the study of payment and currency infrastructure.
Contribution to crypto
Her work at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative examines how digital money can be designed and evaluated. The focus includes systems questions that go beyond the market price of an individual cryptocurrency.
Why the work matters
Research into digital currency should not be conflated with endorsing every token or recommending an investment. Questions about throughput, privacy, resilience and access can be studied independently of a speculative market. Narula’s profile illustrates the role of research institutions in testing those design choices.
Sources and further reading
Profile reviewed September 8, 2026. Historical roles are identified as such. Education is included only where supported by the sources; an unverified qualification is not assumed.