Since 2023, I lead the Human-Centered Security and Privacy group at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP). Our research seeks to empower end-users with more literacy and agency over their personal data when interacting with socio-technical systems. We are strong believers of interdisciplinary research, and always look for opportunities to engage with communities, companies, policymakers, and non-profit organizations to translate our research into practice.

A few directions of ongoing research in our group include:

  • Accessibility: e.g., making technology more accessible to underserved populations, such as deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals and older adults
  • AI ethics: e.g., developing mechanisms that help laypeople better understand the risks and harms of artificial intelligence (AI) systems
  • Cross-cultural security and privacy: e.g., examining people's experiences and advice received in the majority world outside the North American and Western European context
  • Trust and safety: e.g., measuring how scams flow and impact users on social media platforms

Group Members

I am extremely lucky to work with the following people:

Ph.D. Student

Research Intern/Visiting Scholar

Alumni

  • Collins Munyendo (visiting PhD student, the George Washington University, 2023-2024)
  • Kyle Beadle (visiting PhD student, University College London, 2024)
  • Smirity Kaushik (visiting PhD student, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2023-2024)
  • Jackie Hu (research intern, 2023 --> PhD student, University of Michigan)
  • Johanna Gunawan (visiting PhD student, Northeastern University, 2023 --> Assistant Professor, Maastricht University)
  • Mindy Tran (research intern, 2023-2024 --> PhD student, MPI-SP)
  • Princessa Cintaqia (research intern, 2023 --> PhD student, Boston University)
  • Xinru Tang (research intern, 2023 --> PhD student, UC Irvine)

Please feel free to reach out to any one of them if you are interested in learning what it’s like to work with me. If you are interested in joining our group, please read this page first before reaching out to me.