Rachel Cummings

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Rachel Cummings

Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Columbia University

Dr. Rachel Cummings is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and (by courtesy) Computer Science at Columbia University, where she is also a member of the Data Science Institute and co-chairs the Cybersecurity Research Center. She is also a Fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

Before joining Columbia, she was an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and (by courtesy) Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and she received her Ph.D. in Computing and Mathematical Sciences from the California Institute of Technology.

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Her research interests lie primarily in data privacy, with connections to machine learning, algorithmic economics, optimization, statistics, and public policy.
Dr. Cummings is the recipient of numerous awards including an NSF CAREER award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DARPA Director's Fellowship, an Early Career Impact Award, multiple industry research awards, a Provost’s Teaching Award, two doctoral dissertation awards, and Best Paper Awards at DISC 2014, CCS 2021, and SaTML 2023. Dr. Cummings also serves on the ACM U.S. Technology Policy Committee, the IEEE Standards Association, and the Future of Privacy Forum's Advisory Board.

Cummings received her PhD in Computing and Mathematical Sciences from the California Institute of Technology, her MS in Computer Science from Northwestern University, and her BA in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Southern California. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DARPA Director's Fellowship, an Early Career Impact Award, an Apple Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning Award, a JP Morgan Chase Faculty Award, a Google Research Fellowship for the Simons Institute program on Data Privacy, a Mozilla Research Grant, a Provost’s Teaching Award, the ACM SIGecom Doctoral Dissertation Honorable Mention, the Amori Doctoral Prize in Computing and Mathematical Sciences, and Best Paper Awards at DISC 2014, CCS 2021, and SaTML 2023. Cummings also serves on the ACM U.S. Technology Policy Committee, the IEEE Standards Association, and the Future of Privacy Forum's Advisory Board.