NEWS
Find out more about my latest news around research and outreach here. You can find lab news on the AIR lab website.
December 8, 2023
I gave a talk at UHigh school about human-computer interaction, usable privacy, and security, and my research to their high school computer science club.
November 13, 2023
I gave a talk on privacy and security issues in K-12 schools virtually at the CyLab seminar at Carnegie Mellon University.
November 8, 2023
I was a guest on WBEZ Chicago's Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons to talk about the good, bad, and the ugly of screen time.
October 31, 2023
I provided an overview of my research to the Kenwood High School's AP CompSci class during their visit to the department.
October 26, 2023
I provided an overview of my research to the Computational Social Science seminar at UChicago.
October 20, 2023
I gave a talk on EdTech and data governance in K12 schools at the Privacy and Data Governance: Implications for Statistical and Econometric Research conference held at the David Rubenstein forum at the University of Chicago.
August 24, 2023
I gave a talk about my research at my alma mater, the Department of Computer Science in the School of Information Technology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Always excited to reconnect with colleagues and meet new students here!
July 12, 2023
I participated in the annual Kovler Career Conference for high school students in the Chicagoland area organized by the Office of Special Programs. I met some amazing high schoolers at the networking lunch and computer science panel.
July 5, 2023
I gave a talk on our content moderation policy analysis project (which is part of the Data and Democracy initiative) at the Data Science Institute summer lab.
May 8, 2023
I'm excited to serve as a CHI 2025 papers co-chair along with Bongshin Lee and Phoebe O. Toups Dugas. The conference will be in Japan in 2025!
May 5, 2023
I participated on a panel on academic hiring for our annual departmental PhD student career day.
April 4, 2023
Our CHI paper on understanding the privacy and security challenges in K-12 schools won a CHI honorable mention award.
March 19, 2023
A summary of the National Academies of Science panel on K12 education and data science is out.
March 16, 2023
Our paper on childrens', parents' and teachers' experiences with remote learning during the pandemic has been accepted to CSCW. This work was led by Kelly Wagman along with Elana Blinder from UMD as well as our great team Antoine Vignon, Solomon Dworkin, Kevin Song, Tammy Clegg, and Jessica Vitak.
February 23, 2023
I gave a presentation to parents and teens on keeping safe online as part of a College Readiness and Access workshop for the Office of Civic Engagement at UChicago.
February 6, 2023
The conference report from our annual Applications of Contextual Integrity Symposium (PrivaCI 2022) has been posted. You can read the full report here.
January 17, 2023
Our paper on privacy and security challenges around educational technologies in K-12 schools has been accepted to CHI 2023. This work led by Jake Chanenson with Brandon Sloane from New York University was done with a team of awesome researchers including my amazing collaborator Danny Huang (NYU), undergraduates Amy Morrill and Jason Chee, and high-schooler Navaneenth Rajan from Princeton Day School in New Jersey. Here's a summary of the work.
December 15, 2022
I have officially received my tenure notification and been promoted to associate professor!
December 8, 2022
I gave a virtual Harper lecture on dark patterns and consumer protections. A video of the talk is available here.
November 14, 2022
Our paper on Netflix's design features and their influence on users' perceptions of time management and agency over content choice will be presented at CSCW 2023. Here's a short summary of the work.
October 7, 2022
I participated on a panel on data ownership and privacy at a conference on Data, AI & Ethics held at UChicago together with Raul Castro Fernandez, Lior Strahilevitz, and Molly Offer-Westort.
September 13, 2022
I participated virtually on a National Academies of Sciences panel around the topic of when and how data science is occurring in K12 classrooms as part of their workshop on K12 data science education.
August 25, 2022
I gave a talk on Imagining All The People On A Trustworthy Internet at my alma mater, the Department of Computer Science which is now part of the School of Information Technology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Always a pleasure seeing colleagues and students here!
July 15, 2022
I participated on a panel at the Kovler Career conference for Chicagoland high school students hosted by the Office of Civic Engagement at UChicago.
July 14, 2022
I wrapped up co-teaching a course with Jake Chanenson which introduced students to human-computer interaction. This course was part of the Collegiate Scholars program for high school students at UChicago and Jake and I had a blast doing it!
June 22, 2022
I presented our work to understand how different online sites moderate content as part of our Data and Democracy grant to the Data Science Institute's summer lab students.
April 28, 2022
I beamed into Finland to give a talk on dark patterns and consumer protections at the Helsinki-Aalto Institute for Cybersecurity (HAIC). It was great to also discuss our upcoming CSCW paper on account deletion on social media. You can watch the talk here.
April 8, 2022
I had fun participating in the National Robotics week at the Museum of Science and Industry with the AIR lab showcasing our preliminary work on K-12 student data privacy.
April 2, 2022
I am excited to co-chair the Privacy and Security subcommittee at CHI 2023 with Yang Wang.
April 1, 2022
We have a new paper coming out at CSCW on how users experience and manage account deletion and related dark patterns on social media.
March 4, 2022
Together with Yan and Helen, we are organizing the fourth annual symposium on applications of contextual integrity in New York City in September!
February 3, 2022
I'm excited to be on the Oakland program committee for 2023.
December 17, 2021
We received a 2022 Data and Democracy Research seed grant from the Data Science Institute to investigate and audit content moderation policies online. This is a project with fantastic collaborators Nick Feamster, Chenhao Tan, and Genevieve Lakier.
November 15, 2021
I participated in a panel on healthcare technologies at the Internet Frontiers and Opportunities Workshop talking about my experiences working with vulnerable users and marginalized populations.
November 11, 2021
I participated on a panel for the Data Science Institute's Rising Stars in Data Science Workshop on how to make the most of your first year as faculty.
November 3, 2021
I was honored to present the Dr. Frederica Darema Lecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
October 8, 2021
I presented my work at the HCI seminar at Stanford University, zooming into the west coast again!
October 6, 2021
I presented my work at the Design, Use, Build (DUB) seminar at the University of Washington which was fun!
September 30, 2021
We held our third annual symposium on the applications of contextual integrity as a hybrid event at the University of Chicago. It was invigorating to see people in-person and have a successful event thanks to my fantastic co-organizers, Yan, Helen, and Blase!
Septemer 24, 2021
I gave a talk on imagining all the people on the Internet at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) at Carnegie Mellon University.
August 18, 2021
I participated on a virtual career panel at the Center for Data and Computing (CDAC) summer lab.
August 4, 2021
I presented a talk on Automatically Disclosing Online Endorsements with AdIntuition at the Office of Technology Research and Investigation (OTECH) seminar at the Federal Trade Commission.
June 24, 2021
I presented a talk about misleading online content such as dark patterns and disguised advertisements at the 17th Annual Center for Competition Policy Conference on Rethinking Consumer Policy held virtually at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
April 28, 2021
I am the co-chair of the Privacy and Security sub-committee for CHI 2022 with a fantastic co-chair Apu Kapadia.
April 14, 2021
I presented a short talk on my research and participated on a panel with Ravi Chugh at the College Readiness Workshop on Applications of Artificial Intelligence held by the Office of Special Programs at the University of Chicago.
April 7, 2021
My collaborators and I presented a workshop on Keeping Kids Safe Online virtually at Murray Language Academy Elementary School in Chicago.
April 1, 2021
I presented a talk on my research at my PhD alma mater, Gatech, at the GVU center on imagining a trustworthy Internet for all. You can watch the recorded talk here.
March 15, 2021
Our paper on how Black Lives Matters in-person protesters use online privacy and security advice received a CHI Honorable Mention Award.
March 12, 2021
I presented a lightning talk at the virtual Women in Data Science conference in Chicago.
February 7, 2021
I was a judge for the <interstell/her> Hackathon for middle school girls organized by compileHer. Many of the students that help run the organization are members of AIR lab.
January 15, 2021
I am excited to receive a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to study the impact of educational technologies on school children's privacy. Our CS department has posted a great summary story on the grant here.
January 11, 2021
I was one of the panelists on the interdisciplinary data science panel at the Center for Data and Computing's Rising Stars in Data Science event. You can watch a video of the event here.
December 29, 2020
Our paper on how users perceive native versus third party apps on Alexa has been accepted to Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT). This is work done with in collaboration with David Major (Princeton), Danny Huang (NYU), and Nick Feamster.
December 12, 2020
Our paper on how Black Lives Matter novice in-person protesters understand privacy and security advice guides has been accepted to CHI 2021. This work is being conducted with my great collaborators in SUPERgroup, Maia Boyd, Jamar Sullivan, and Blase Ur in addition to Lily Hackworth.
December 8, 2020
I presented our work on helping children learn about online privacy and security at CHI Hack night. You can watch the video of the presentation and Q&A session with my collaborator Tammy Clegg here.
November 30, 2020
The Physical Sciences division at UChicago did a profile piece about me that helps explain my roots and what drives me.
November 06, 2020
I participated in two panels on Technology as part of the UChicago's Office of Special Programs College Prep annual Kovler Foundation Larry Hawkins Career Conference for High School Students. It was great to interact with such inspiring young minds and to tell them more about my career path.
October 30, 2020
I participated in an inter-disciplinary workshop on Online Manipulation organized by the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech. It was fascinating to hear different perspectives from legal scholars, philosophers, and others!
October 29, 2020
I gave a talk on tackling security at the margins at the MIT security seminar, discussing examples of security with often overlooked populations such as system administrators who handle software updates, children who need to learn about online privacy and security at a young age, and low income mobile users in South Africa who have to manage privacy on social media platforms.
October 16, 2020
I had a great time participating in the Ada Lovelace week at UChicago organized by Pedro Lopes's lab. As part of the event, I had the good fortune to pair up on a panel with Ellen Do. You can view the panel video here.
September 23, 2020
It was wonderful to be part of the SUPERgroup with my fantastic colleague Blase Ur! Since my work tends to revolve around the Internet, my students and I are branching out into the Amyoli Internet Research Lab or AIR lab. We will continue to work closely with SUPERgroup since our research overlaps! The AIR lab website is now live.
September 22, 2020
Together with Helen Nissenbaum (Cornell Tech), Yan Shvartzshnaider (New York University) and Blase Ur (University of Chicago), I co-organized and hosted the Virtual Town Hall on Contextual Integrity of Contact Tracing on September 22, 2020. This is our third event which we moved to virtual in 2020 owing to the pandemic and it was a great success with a lively panel and breakout sessions. Video coming soon on the PrivaCI website.
June 22, 2020
Together with collaborators at the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University, I led a comment to the Federal Trade Commission on their online endorsement guidelines based on our work on AdIntuition and studies of affiliate marketing on YouTube and Pinterest.
May 26, 2020
Together with colleagues at UChicago, we held the CHIcago event to showcase CHI papers from UChicago in 2020. Although we were not able to go to Hawaii owing to the pandemic, we were excited to have so many papers at CHI this year. The video recording of the event can be found here.
May 24, 2020
I enjoyed given an invited lecture as part of ATHENA's Women in STEM Initiative. ATHENA is an international organization that strives to support female high school students interested in STEM careers by providing members with professional mentoring and role models.
March 02, 2020
Excited to present our new paper examining how low-income South African mobile phone users manage privacy on Facebook and WhatsApp and deal with issues around physical safety at USENIX Security 2020. This work was led by Jake Reichel at Princeton University.
February 26, 2020
Together with folks at the Center for Information and Technology Policy, we submitted a comment on the California Consumer Privacy Act.
February 19, 2020
I participated in a fun panel with Nicholas Epley and Adam Alter on technology addiction, speaking on our work on dark patterns for the Chicago Booth's Big Question series. We filmed an update during the lockdown and the full panel summary with accompanying video can be found here.
January 21, 2020
Very excited to receive a SATC EDU NSF award to continue our work to help elementary school children learn digital literacy skills, particularly around online privacy and security. This is an ongoing project with my fantastic collaborators, Jessica Vitak, and Tamara Clegg from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). Our work builds on three years of research with Priya Kumar, a graduate student at UMD.
January 15, 2020
Together with collaborators at the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University, I submitted a comment to the Federal Trade Commission on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) revisions in response to their request for comments. In particular, I contributed suggestions for how to consider privacy and security in schools and the perspective of parents. You can read the summary of the full comment largely put together by Mihir Kshirsagar and Jonathan Mayer here.
December 09, 2019
Our paper on developing and evaluating AdIntuition has been accepted to CHI 2020. AdIntuition is a browser extension we developed that helps YouTube viewers know when influencers have affiliate marketing relationships. See our GitHub page here. You can download the extension for Firefox or Chrome.
December 05, 2019
Our work on uncovering dark patterns in shopping websites, led by Arunesh Mathur, was awarded the Annual Privacy Papers For Policymakers award. This work has also been featured in the NYTimes, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and CNN.
August 30, 2019
I've officially moved to Chicago and joined forces with Blase Ur to make the SUPERgroup even bigger and to help grow the HCI collective with Pedro Lopes!
August 12, 2019
Our paper on how system administrators manage software updates received the distinguished paper award at SOUPS 2019!
July 29, 2019
Our paper, led by Arunesh Mathur, on dark patterns on shopping websites will be presented at CSCW in Austin, TX in November. Check out the website or read about recent news coverage on the NYTimes. If you want a primer on dark patterns, listen to this Guardian podcast featuring Arunesh.
July 11, 2019
Our chrome extension, AdIntuition, that helps detect sponsored content in YouTube videos was featured in WIRED.
June 30, 2019
I'm now an assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago!
May 13, 2019
Our paper on how system administrators manage software updates will appear in SOUPS 2019! Frank Li and Lisa Rogers led this work together with Arunesh Mathur and Nathan Malkin!
May 03, 2019
I'm excited to be joining the Department of Computer Science at UChicago in Summer 2019!
April 05, 2019
I held a session on Design Thinking for high school girls as part of Stuart Country Day School's #LeadLikeAGirl conference.
March 31, 2019
Nick Feamster and I presented as part of the Princeton Day School Pioneers in Science program to high schoolers about machine learning and applications.
March 16, 2019
I'm excited to serve on the CHI 2020 PC this year.
December 09, 2018
Our paper on privacy and security considerations for digital technology use in elementary schools was accepted to CHI 2019.
October 05, 2018
Our paper on endorsements in social media was awarded a CSCW best paper award!
September 20, 2018
Excited to serve on the USENIX Security program committee this year.
August 08, 2018
Our papers on user perceptions of smart home Internet of Things (IoT) privacy and advertising disclosures on YouTube and Pinterest have been accepted to CSCW 2018.
August 06, 2018
I'm excited to have been awarded a Facebook Securing the Internet Grant to study mobile users' perceptions of privacy on social media in South Africa together with a fantastic collaborator, Susan Wyche!
July 10, 2018
Together with my fantastic co-organizers, we are organizing a second symposium on Applications of Contextual Integrity.
June 18, 2018
Presented two lectures introducing computer ethics and human-computer interaction at the summer institute on computational social sciences in Cape Town, South Africa.
May 06, 2018
We have four exciting new papers coming up this year. The first is on co-designing educational resources to teach children about online safety to be presented at the Interaction Design and Children conference. The second is a paper of affiliate marketing disclosures on Pinterest and YouTube to be presented at ConPro 2018. The third is a user study of browser extensions to prevent online tracking to be presented at SOUPS 2018 and the final paper describes a study of how Tor users understand and make use of onion services to be presented at USENIX Security 2018!
March 18, 2018
Together with a fantastic set of collaborators, I am co-organizing a workshop on Designing Privacy and Security Tools for Children and Teenagers at SOUPS 2018.
February 20, 2018
Awarded a Google Faculty Research award to continue work on our project, "Keeping Kids Safe: Equipping Elementary School Kids with Online Safety Skills" with my amazing collaborators Tammy Clegg and Jessica Vitak at University of Maryland, College Park.
December 10, 2017
Together with Yan Shvartzshnaider and Helen Nissenbaum, I co-organized a workshop on applications of contextual integrity.
December 10, 2017
Our paper entitled "Understanding the Use and Impact of the Zero-Rated Free Basics Platform in South Africa" was accepted to CHI 2018! See you in Montreal!
November 27, 2017
I was a panelist talking about software updates and Dissecting the Equifax Breach at the Center for Information and Technology Policy.
August 31, 2017
I organized a distinguished lecture series in human-computer interaction at the Department of Computer Science at Princeton with four stellar speakers including Jeff Heer, Lorrie Cranor, Mary Czerwinski, and James Landay.
August 07, 2017
Our paper entitled "No Telling Out Passcodes Because They're Private: Childrens' Mental Models of Online Privacy and Security" was accepted to CSCW 2018 - online first conference.
May 23, 2017
Our paper entitled "Impact of User Characteristics on Attitudes Towards Automatic Mobile Application Updates" was accepted to SOUPS 2017.
February 13, 2017
Presented a talk on the privacy and security implications of drones at the Center for Information and Technology Policy Center at Princeton.
December 11, 2016
Our paper on user perceptions of privacy and security issues around drones will be presented at CHI 2017.
October 31, 2016
I have finally moved to Princeton and I am now officially in the CS department :) - back to my roots!
July 27, 2016
I gave a talk on our work on improving software updating interfaces at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
July 03, 2016
I will be starting a position as a Research Scholar at the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University in Fall 2016.
June 22, 2016
Our paper on improving software updating interfaces was presented at SOUPS 2016.
February 17, 2016
Gave a talk on users and software updates at the Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences.
February 11, 2016
Awarded a Google Faculty Research Award with Tammy Clegg to study kids' mental models of online safety
December 7, 2015
Gave a talk at UMD's MC2 Symposium on usable, livable, and inclusive cybersecurity.
24 November, 2015
Gave a talk at Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton on improving the user experience of software updates.
23 November, 2015
Gave two talks at Columbia University and Cornell Tech in NYC on improving the user experience of software updates.
20 August, 2015
Joined the ICTD 2016 senior program committee
23 July, 2015
Gave a talk at University of Cape Town CS Department on mobile data usage habits in South Africa.
15 July, 2015
Our paper on mobile data usage in South Africa will be presented at Ubicomp 2015.
30 March, 2015
Joined the CHI 2016 program committee.
14 December, 2014
Our paper on uCap has been accepted to CHI 2015.
26 November, .2014
Joined the Ubicomp 2015 program committee.
11 November, 2014
Gave a talk at Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton about how users perceive and manage Internet data caps in the home.
28 October, 2014
Gave a talk at University of Maryland Science of Security meeting about user barriers to software updates.
26 July, 2014
Gave a talk at University of Cape Town CS Department on helping users to manage data caps in the home.
27 June, 2014
Awarded NSF grant to study personalization services and pollution attacks
8 May, 2014
Awarded funding from the National Security Agency for our work on software updates.
6 April, 2014
Became papers-co chair for DEV 2014.
14 February, 2014
Awarded Google research grant for project on studying mobile Internet users' data habits.
4 February, 2014
NetCHI lab website launched.
15 January, 2014
Presented a seminar at University of Cape Town.
20 November, 2013
Our paper on ISP interconnectivity in Africa was accepted to the PAM conference.
10 October, 2013
Joined the Ubicomp 2014 program committee.
4 September, 2013
Paper on "Measuring Broadband Performance in South Africa" accepted to ACM DEV.
29 July, 2013
Website updated!
20 July, 2013
Relocated to the DC area.
6 February, 2012
I am co-chair for the Ubicomp 2012 posters track.
10 January, 2012
I presented my work at a workshop held by the HomeWork project at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK.
10 December, 2011
The second W-MUST workshop, that I am co-organising with Richard Mortier, was accepted for SIGCOMM 2012.
10 December, 2011
Our paper on how users manage bandwidth usage caps was conditionally accepted to CHI 2012.
24 November, 2011
I presented my work at Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany.
15 November, 2011
We demoed uCap at the FutureMedia Fest conference held at Georgia Tech.
26 October, 2011
We demoed uCap at the GVU demo showcase at Georgia Tech.
11 October, 2011
I'm on a panel on home networking at the IEEE Computer Communications Workshop in Hyannis, MA.
6 September, 2011
I'm on the job market this year. I'm seeking faculty and industrial research positions. Watch this space for my application materials.
17 August, 2011
We presented our uCap demo at SIGCOMM 2011 in Toronto, Canada.
5 August, 2011
PhD graduation!
4 August, 2011
Kermit and uCap were featured on CNET.
1 August, 2011
I presented my work on Kermit at the HCI lunch at Google in Mountainview, CA.
29 July, 2011
I gave an invited talk on Kermit at Technicolor in Palo Alto, CA.
28 July, 2011
I gave an invited talk to the CS networking group at Stanford.
24 June, 2011
My PhD was officially approved by Georgia Tech and I will graduate in August 2011.
12 May, 2011
Kermit was featured in many tech blogs and news sites notably Slashdot, Boing Boing, Networked World andArs Technica.
11 May, 2011
I presented our paper at the CHI 2011 conference in Vancouver, Canada.
10 May, 2011
Kermit is featured on the Gatech webpage and digital lounge.
22 April, 2011
Our Interactions column came out in the March/April issue on computing in "capped" situations.
21 April, 2011
I gave a CHI preview talk at the GVU brown bag.
19 April, 2011
I successfully defended my PhD and I'm one step closer to becoming a "Dr".
8 April, 2011
I served on the Grace Hopper 2011 PhD Forum committee.
5 April, 2011
Bethany Sumner, a student I am advising, won an "Outstanding Oral Presentation" award at the GT Undergraduate Research Symposium for her project on "Designing Music Technology in an Internet Age".
23 March, 2011
Our Kermit paper will receive a Best Paper Award at CHI 2011 in Vancouver.
17 March, 2011
I will receive an award for "Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant" at the Annual College of Computing award ceremony in April.
16 December, 2010
Our interactive paper was accepted to CSCW 2011 in China.
15 December, 2010
Our Kermit paper was accepted to CHI 2011 in Canada.
5 November, 2010
I gave an invited talk at the Interaction and Experience Research group at Intel Labs in Portland.
7 October, 2010
I gave an invited talk at the CS department at UCT.
5 October, 2010
I was featured as a past intern on the MSR Cambridge website
26 September, 2010
I presented my work at the Transnational Times workshop at Ubicomp 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
24 September, 2010
The Intel PhD Fellowship winners for 2010 were officially announced.
9 August, 2010
I'm working on a project with Microsoft Research and Georgia Tech in Cape Town, South Africa for three months.
14 July, 2010
I was a lunch guest at the Turner 21st Century Leaders event for high school students.
23 April, 2010
I have been awarded an Intel PhD fellowship for 2010-2011.
20 April, 2010
I have been accepted to the CSST summer 2010 workshop in WA.
12 April, 2010
My research is featured on the Gatech website.
1 April, 2010
I gave a preview of our CHI paper talk at the GVU Brown Bag.
19 March, 2010
I gave a preview of our TOCHI journal paper talk at the Gatech Aware Home seminar.
16 March, 2010
I was a judge for the College of Computing at the Gatech UROP Symposium.
24 February, 2010
I was one of two students Gatech selected to attend the HCIC 2010 Winter Workshop in Fraser, Colorado.
18 February, 2010
I was a student participant at the Computing @ the Margins symposium held at Gatech.
9 February, 2010
I won a $2000 travel grant for an outstanding poster presentation at the GT Research and Innovation conference.
12 January, 2010
I'll be presenting our TOCHI journal paper on home networking at CHI 2010.
14 December, 2009
I'll be presenting & co-presenting two papers at CHI 2010, one on bandwidth monitoring and one on ICT4D.
12 October, 2009
I have been named a Foley scholar for 2009-2010.
22 September, 2009
I have been named a Foley scholar finalist for 2009-2010.
7 August, 2009
I recently finished an awesome internship at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. These were my impressions.