Aleecia McDonald
Technology Policy Leader, Engineering and Public Policy
Aleecia M. McDonald focuses on the public policy issues of internet privacy, including user expectations for privacy tools, behavioral economics and mental models of privacy, and the efficacy of industry self regulation. She co-chaired the WC3’s Tracking Protection Working Group, which was an effort to establish international standards for a Do Not Track mechanism that users can enable to request enhanced privacy online.
McDonald’s decade of experience working in software startups adds a practical focus to her academic work, and she was a senior privacy researcher for Mozilla prior to working as director of Privacy at Stanford. Her findings have been featured in media outlets such as the Washington Post, Ars Technica, and NPR. She has presented findings in testimony to the California Assembly, and contributed to testimony before the United States Senate and the Federal Trade Commission.
Education
2010 Ph.D., Engineering & Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
2008 MS, Engineering & Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
2006 MS, Public Policy and Management with a concentration in Internet Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
1993 BA, Professional Writing, Carnegie Mellon University
Research Interests
- Applications of security and privacy
- automotive and transportation security and privacy
- data security and privacy
- elections security
- engineering and public policy
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- IoT security and privacy
- Measurement and analysis
- mobile and app security and privacy
- network security
- privacy
- privacy engineering
- privacy enhancing technologies
- privacy policy and regulation
- risk analysis and management
- security and privacy economics
- security education, awareness, and training
- security policy and regulation
- social networks security and privacy
- systems security
- Usability and human behavior
- usable privacy and security
- web security