Lorrie Cranor named AAAS Fellow

Lorrie Cranor, the director of CyLab and a professor in the Institute for Software Research and the department of Engineering and Public Policy, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

As part of the section on information, computing, and communication, Cranor was elected as an AAAS Fellow for her contributions to usable privacy and security research, policy, and education.

“I am extremely honored to be included in the ranks of others who have been given this designation by AAAS,” says Cranor. “I am very grateful to everyone who has mentored me and worked with me to advance the usability of security and privacy.”

Cranor has published more than 200 research papers, including those on usable and secure passwords, making privacy policies more usable, and training users not to fall for phishing attacks. In 2005, she founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) conference, and in that same year, she co-edited the seminal book Security and Usability. She regularly presents privacy research in Washington, DC policy forums, and she served as Chief Technologist of the Federal Trade Commission in 2016.

I am extremely honored to be included in the ranks of others who have been given this designation.

Lorrie Cranor, Director, CyLab

This year’s AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on November 27. Avirtual Fellows Forum—an induction ceremony for the new Fellows—will be held on February, 13 2021.

Elizabeth Dickey, who will join the CMU faculty in January as head of the department of Materials Science and Engineering, was also named an AAAS Fellow for distinguished contributions to materials engineering research and education, particularly for the utilization of electron microscopy techniques for quantifying atomic- to micrometer-scale structure of materials.

The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the association’s 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee’s institution), or by the AAAS chief executive officer. Fellows must have been continuous members of AAAS for four years by the end of the calendar year in which they are elected. The AAAS Fellow honor comes with an expectation that recipients maintain the highest standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity.

Each steering group reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.

The Council is the policymaking body of the Association, chaired by the AAAS president, and consisting of the members of the board of directors, the retiring section chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division, and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.

AAAS encourages its sections and Council to consider diversity among those nominated and selected as Fellows, in keeping with the association’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.