Lorrie Faith Cranor

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Shorter Bio

Lorrie Faith Cranor is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University where she is director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and co-director of the MSIT-Privacy Engineering masters program. She is also a co-founder of Wombat Security Technologies, Inc. She has authored over 100 research papers on online privacy, usable security, phishing, spam, electronic voting, anonymous publishing, and other topics. She has played a key role in building the usable privacy and security research community, having co-edited the seminal book Security and Usability (O'Reilly 2005) and founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). She also chaired the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) Specification Working Group at the W3C and authored the book Web Privacy with P3P (O'Reilly 2002). She has served on a number of boards, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation Board of Directors, and on the editorial boards of several journals. In 2003 she was named one of the top 100 innovators 35 or younger by Technology Review magazine. She was previously a researcher at AT&T-Labs Research and taught in the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Longer Bio

Lorrie Faith Cranor is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University where she is director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and co-director of the MSIT-Privacy Engineering masters program. She teaches courses on privacy, usable security, and computers and society. She is also a co-founder of Wombat Security Technologies, Inc. She came to CMU in December 2003 after seven years at AT&T Labs-Research. While at AT&T she also taught in the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Dr. Cranor has played a key role in building the usable privacy and security research community. She co-edited the seminal book Security and Usability (O'Reilly 2005), and founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). She also directs an NSF-funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program on usable privacy and security.

Dr. Cranor was appointed a Privacy by Design (PbD) Ambassador by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada. She has testified about privacy issues at a Congressional hearing and at workshops held by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission.

Dr. Cranor has authored over 100 research papers on online privacy, usable security, phishing, spam, electronic voting, anonymous publishing, and other topics. She chaired the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) Specification Working Group at the World Wide Web Consortium and authored the book Web Privacy with P3P (O'Reilly 2002). In 2003 she was named one of the top 100 innovators 35 or younger by Technology Review magazine. She has received faculty research awards from IBM, Microsoft, and Google.

Dr. Cranor serves on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Future of Privacy Forum Advisory Board, the DARPA Privacy Panel, and the Washington University in St. Louis Department of Computer Science and Engineering External Advisory Board. She is also a commissioned Kentucky Colonel and a member of USACM. She was chair of the Tenth Conference on Computers Freedom and Privacy (CFP2000) and program committee chair for the 29th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC 2001). In 2000 she served on the Federal Trade Commission Advisory Committee on Online Access and Security. She also serves on the editorial boards of the journals The Information Society, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research, and I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society.

Dr. Cranor consults for companies and non-profits on privacy policies, P3P, usable privacy and security, and technology policy. She has also served as an expert witness in patent litigation and in cases challenging the constitutionality of Internet harmful-to-minors laws, including the ACLU's successful challenge to the 1998 Children's Online Protection Act.

Dr. Cranor received her doctorate degree in Engineering & Policy from Washington University in St. Louis in 1996. She also holds an undergraduate degree and two masters degrees from Washington University. While in graduate school she helped found Crossroads, the ACM Student Magazine, and served as the publication's editor-in-chief for two years.

Dr. Cranor has been studying electronic voting systems since 1994 and in 2000 served on the executive committee of a National Science Foundation sponsored Internet voting taskforce. Since 2004 she has served as an Allegheny County, PA elections poll worker. Dr. Cranor was also a member of the project team that developed the Publius censorship-resistant publishing system. In February 2001, the Publius team was honored by Index on Censorship magazine for the "Best Circumvention of Censorship."

Dr. Cranor spends most of her free time with her husband, Chuck, her son, Shane, and her daughters, Maya and Nina. She is a Pittsburgh Dynamo Youth Soccer commissioner. Sometimes she finds time to design and create award-winning quilts.