Students

Majid Hatamian, Goethe Universitaet Frankfurt
Majid Hatamian is a Ph.D. student of Computer Science at the Goethe University of Frankfurt (Germany). He also serves as a research and teaching assistant at the chair of Mobile Business and Multilateral Security at the Goethe University of Frankfurt. During his graduate studies, he was concentrated on wireless communications, security/privacy in P2P networks, nano communications, and machine learning techniques. He is currently focusing on privacy issues related to the indicators in smartphone ecosystems. He holds several awards and one patent deriving from his research. He is a member of the IEEE.

Agnieszka Kitkowska, Karlstad University
Agnieszka Kitkowska is a PhD student at Karlstad University. Her PhD research concentrates on measuring and manipulating privacy related attitudes and behaviors and is being supervised by Leonardo Martucci, Erik Wastlund and Joachim Meyer. Originally from Poland, Agnieszka has spent the majority of her professional career working and studying in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has a multidisciplinary background, holding MSa in History of Art and Culture from Nicolaus Copernicus University (Torun, Poland) and MSc in Computing from Edinburgh Napier University. Her professional experience and her interests expand over disciplines such as HCI, Usability, UX, accessibility and design. Her current project focuses on investigating the attitude-behavior gap in privacy related decision-making by incorporating interdisciplinary methods acquired from computer science, social sciences and psychology.

Patrick Murmann, Karlstad University
Patrick Murmann is a PhD student at Karlstad University (KAU). His activities as a member of the Privacy & Us-project are focused on research related to “usable transparency”. In this context, he is evaluating methodologies and technologies that make transparent the implications of a user’s actions with regard to his or her privacy.

Luiza Jarovsky, Tel Aviv University
Luiza graduated in Law from the University of Sao Paulo, completed her Master in Law at Tel Aviv University (with specialization in Law & Technology) and is currently a Ph.D. student at Tel Aviv University, part of the Privacy & Us project, researching informed consent in privacy. She has been working as a business lawyer since 2011 and has a strong online presence, posting articles in her blogs and videos in her YouTube channel; there are currently more than 650,000 people following her work on social networks. Author of three books: Laila – SÈrie Completa, Humanos, acordem and O que existe entre um pensamento e outro and organizer of the book Direito para Empreendedores, she speaks Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, Italian and German and is currently learning Hebrew. Her research interests are privacy, privacy law, usability and informed consent.

Alexandr Ralien, Unäbhngiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz
A graduate of the Technical University of Moldova, Alexander is passionate about computers and technology since early childhood. Throughout the years he has developed an interest in cognitive psychology and nowadays he likes to hang out at the intersection of these fields (occasionally wandering into adjacent areas). His current research focus at ULD (Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz, Kiel) is the privacy and security of the Internet of things. He has a decade of experience as a computer security software engineer and 6 years of lecturing at his alma mater and abroad. Alexander enjoys sci-fi films and books, writing poetry, [time-]traveling, programming, solving quirky cross-disciplinary puzzles, ping-pong, wordplay, sharing knowledge, electronic music and post-rock, writing lists and using humor as glue between these elements.

Lamya Abdullah, Uniscon
Lamya Abdullah is a PhD student at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nurnberg (FAU). She is based at Uniscon GmbH, Germany. Her research focuses on understanding data privacy threats in smart environment. In her project, she studies design choices to build data-processing solutions that are adaptive to users’ privacy preferences. She worked as a software developer for more than 5 years, she designed systems adaptively to users’ requirements and feedback. During her masters study she focused on Computer Wireless Networks and Security protocols. Before she joined Privacy & Us, she was a teaching assistant, while she got a Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice. She studied the use of Security Information and Event Management Systems for information security threat mitigation. Besides computing and knowledge dissemination, Lamya is amused by cosmos and discovery. She enjoys Mahjongg, sudoku, ping-pong, jigsaw puzzles and traveling and observing linguistics, human psychology and cultures.

Juan Quintero, Uniscon
Juan Quintero is a PhD student at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen (FAU), Germany. His PhD Project focuses on User Acceptance of the Sealed Cloud Concept and is being supervised by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Felix Freiling, Dr. Hubert Jäger and Dr. Zinaida Benenson. He is based at Uniscon GmbH, Munich, Germany. He is originally from Colombia and has a degree in Computer Science, and a Master degree from Universidad Industrial de Santader, Colombia. In addition He has a second Master's degree in Information and Communication Systems Security from European University of Madrid, Spain. Since 2006, he has been working with many different software companies, in variety of businesses, (insurance, healthcare, education, sales, royalties) utilising multiple software processes and methodologies. At the same time, He has been researching in Digital Signature, Privacy, Dynamic Binary Instrumentation (DBI), Steganography, MPI (Message Passing Interface) and Big Data. He has extensive experience in every stage of the software process, specifically: analysis, design, implementation, development, testing, deployment, support, and consulting. He is Java SE 5 Programmer and Oracle Certified Developer for Java Web Services.

Alexandros Mittos, University College London
Alexandros Mittos was born in Athens, Greece in 1989. He received his Bachelor of Engineering from the Information and Communication Systems Engineering department, of the University of the Aegean in 2014. He was awarded with a scholarship for his MSc studies in Information & Communication Systems Security, where he served as a lab assistant and as a course assistant. At the moment he is a PhD student at University College London, where, under the guidance of Emiliano De Cristofaro, he is investigating how to securely and efficiently store genomic data, design and implement privacy-preserving genomic testing, as well as support user-centered design of secure personal genomic applications. His research interests include Privacy Enhancing Technologies and Secure Multiparty Computation. Alexandros is an advocate of Privacy and a firm believer and user of Open Source Software. During his free time, he likes to play Chess, Video Games and Pen & Paper games.

Mark Warner, University College London
Mark Warner has a Masters degree in Security Management from the University of Portsmouth, where he was researching antecedent factors to privacy concerns impacting self-censorship over online social messing platforms. Currently a PhD Student in the Interaction Centre at the University College London, his research is focused on better understanding and supporting users decision-making around health care data disclosure, supervised by Professor Ann Blandford. Prior to joining the Privacy & Us project, he worked as an Advisor for the Abu Dhabi Police, designing and implementing digital forensic capability improvement projects. His previous experience includes working as a Forensic Engineer for law enforcement and government agencies within the UK. He has been involved in a number of large, high profile investigations and has provided expert testimony at the UK Central Criminal courts. Outside of work, Mark is a keen long distance running and loves the outdoors.

Poornigha Santhana Kumar, Usecon
Poornigha Santhana Kumar is a PhD student at the University of Salzburg. She is based at USECON, Vienna, Austria. Her research focuses on designing for privacy & security at point of sale commercial transactions. During her PhD, she aims to design and develop hybrid secure experience prototypes and evaluate the prototypes in context. She holds a Bachelor degree in Information Technology from India and a Master degree in Informatics from University of Zurich, Switzerland. During her masters she specialized in Human computer interaction with her thesis exploring how novice researchers reads research papers. Her area of interest includes user centered design, UI deigning, usability testing and web engineering. In her free time she enjoys reading, origami and traveling.

Andreas Gutmann, Vasco
Andreas Gutmann is a PhD Student in the Information Security Research Group at University College London. His PhD Project is on Privacy-preserving Transaction Authentication for Mobile Devices. He is based in the Innovation Centre of VASCO Data Security, Cambridge. His supervisor is Dr. Steven J. Murdoch. He’s originally from Germany. Before joining Privacy & Us, he was a research assistant on usable authentication at Technische Universität Darmstadt. He’s been a visiting researcher at University of Tokyo, University of Glasgow and Karlstad University. He has a degree in computer science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. During his studies he was recipient of a scholarship from the College for Gifted Students and was a research intern at University of Tokyo. His research interests are mainly on privacy-preserving and usable authentication as well as the human factors therein and related social engineering.

Esther Görnemann, Vienna University
Esther Goernemann is a PhD Student at the Institute for Management Information Systems in Vienna University of Economics & Business. In her research, she focuses on psychological ownership of personal data and how it is affected by increased transparency and risk awareness. She has a Master in Business Management and a Master in International Marketing. Data markets, user’s data sharing behavior and risk perception were main focuses during her studies. Esther has also worked as Management Consultant for KPMG in Finance and IT Advisory and several years in Marketing, PR and Customer Relationship Management in the Solar Industry. Her hobby is music: playing the guitar, the piano and singing.

Yefim Shulman, Tel Aviv University
Yefim graduated from the Higher School of Economics (Moscow) with an M.Sc. in Business Informatics. He is now a Ph.D. researcher at Tel Aviv University. Over the years his interests ranged finance to data science, from linguistics to astrophysics, from cosmology to evolutionary biology, guiding him to achieve different levels of proficiency or incompetence in those various fields, as well as in understanding the universe itself. Supervised by Professor Joachim Meyer, Yefim’s current research investigates human decision making and aspires to engineer a model for simulating users’ privacy trade-off reasoning and predicting users’ choices to disclose personal information.