Rebecca Wright's Home Page

REBECCA WRIGHT

Rebecca Wright

Rebecca N. Wright
Barnard College
Druckenmiller Professor, Computer Science
Faculty Director, Vagelos Computational Science Center
Affiliate, Computer Science, Columbia University
Member, Data Science Institute, Columbia University
Co-chair, Cybersecurity Research Center, Data Science Institute, Columbia University
Milstein Center, Room 513
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
USA

email: rwright (at) barnard.edu
for CS chair business, please use: chair-cs (at) barnard.edu

Short bio | One-page bio | CV | Office hours

Jump to: Research Interests | Professional Activities | Courses | Publications | Students and Postdocs

Research Interests

Computer and communications security, particularly in the areas of privacy, cryptographic protocols, and fault-tolerant distributed computing. Designing protocols, systems, and services that perform their specified computational or communication functions even if some of the participants or underlying components behave maliciously.

Current Professional Activities

Faculty lead for the Cyber NYC REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates Program). Undergrads from Barnard, Columbia, CUNY, and NYU: apply now! Applications due 3/25/2025.

Barnard Computer Science is hiring! We are hiring an assistant professor for an expected Fall 2025 start. Update 3/7/2025: The search is still in progress, but we are unlikely to look at any new applications.

Columbia Data Science Institute, Cybersecurity Research Center, Co-chair.

ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Steering Committee.

Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), Privacy and Technology Advisory Board.

Computing Research Association's Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP), Board of Directors.

Transactions on Data Privacy, Editorial Board.

PeerJ Computer Science, Editorial Board.

Courses

Fall 2024:	COMS BC 3420. Privacy in a Networked World.

Fall 2023:	COMS BC 3420. Privacy in a Networked World.

Fall 2022:	COMS BC 3420. Privacy in a Networked World.

Spring 2022:	COMS BC 3420. Privacy in a Networked World.
	COMS BC 3997. New Directions in Computing: Guest Lecture Series

Fall 2021:	FYSB BC 1736. First-Year Seminar: Tech and Society: Good, Bad, and Other.
	COMS BC 3997. New Directions in Computing: Guest Lecture Series

Spring 2021:	COMS BC 3420. Privacy in a Networked World.

Fall 2020:	FYSB BC 1736. First-Year Seminar: Tech and Society: Good, Bad, and Other.

Spring 2020:	COMS BC 3420. Privacy in a Networked World.
	COMS BC 3997. New Directions in Computing: Guest Lecture Series

Fall 2019:	COMS BC 3420. Privacy in a Networked World.

The following courses were taught at Rutgers University.

Spring 2018:	01:198:294. Great Ideas and Insights in Computer Science, house course for the Douglass-SAS-DIMACS Computer Science Living-Learning Community

Spring 2017:	01:198:294. Great Ideas and Insights in Computer Science, house course for the Douglass-SAS-DIMACS Computer Science Living-Learning Community

Spring 2013:	16:198:500. Light Seminar on Secure Computation (co-led with Jason Perry)

2012–2018:	Douglass-DIMACS Computing Corps, faculty advisor. Watch the video!

Fall 2011:	16:198:500. Light Seminar on Accountability in Online Life

Fall 2009:	16:198:500. Light Seminar on Economics of Cybersecurity

Fall 2008:	16:198:671. Privacy in a Networked World
	16:198:500. Light Seminar on Readings in Differential Privacy

Fall 2007:	16:198:672. Theory of Distributed Computation

The following courses were taught at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Spring 2007:	CS601A. Algorithmic Complexity

Spring 2006:	CS625A. Foundations of Distributed Computing

Fall 2005:	CS601A. Algorithmic Complexity

Spring 2005:	CS465A/CS765A. Privacy in a Networked World
	CS693A. Cryptographic Protocols (co-taught with Prof. Susanne Wetzel)

Fall 2004:	CS668A. Foundations of Cryptography

Spring 2004:	CS601A. Algorithmic Complexity

Fall 2003:	CS668A. Foundations of Cryptography

Spring 2003:	CS601A. Algorithmic Complexity

Fall 2002:	CS765C. Foundations of Distributed Computing

I organized a series of tutorials at DIMACS, August 4-7, 2003: DIMACS Tutorial on Applied Cryptography and Network Security

Publications

Publications by year | Publications by type | Publications by topic | Full list of publications

Students and Postdocs

Graduated Students

Cong Zhang (co-advised with David Cash), PhD 2020 (Rutgers) → University of Maryland
Neil Lutz, PhD 2017 (Rutgers) → University of Pennsylvania → Swarthmore College
Jason Perry, PhD 2015 (Rutgers) → Lewis University
Darakhshan Mir, PhD 2013 (Rutgers) → Wellesley College → Bucknell
Geetha Jagannathan, PhD 2010 (Rutgers) → Columbia
Michael de Mare, PhD 2010 (Stevens)
Zhiqiang Yang, PhD 2007 (Stevens) → Imagine Software → Goldman Sachs
Hiranmayee Subramaniam, MS 2003 (Stevens) → PolyPaths

Postdocs

Vijay Ramachandran (February 2006 - July 2007) → Colgate
Sotiris Ioannidis (February 2005 - June 2007, co-supervised with Susanne Wetzel) → FORTH
Sheng Zhong (September 2004 - July 2005) → University at Buffalo (SUNY) → Nanjing University