College of Computing Faculty Candidate Seminar - Rosanna Bellini

Talk Title: Decoding Abusive Adversaries for Safer Digital Systems 

Abstract: People today face threats to their digital safety that most computing systems were never designed to protect them from: those closest to them. Abusive adversaries take ample advantage of standard user interfaces and ineffective anti-abuse mechanisms, leveraging their close social and physical proximity to their target to stalk, harass, and control. In this talk, I describe my research focused on intimate partner violence where I: (1) pioneer approaches to engaging with abusive adversaries first hand across online and in-person contexts, (2) design and deploy bespoke systems to challenge abusive behaviors via community-based interventions; and (3) develop new frameworks for building abuse-resilient technologies. I outline my research vision to achieve digital safety for all people across critical domains, including finance, healthcare, and research. 

Bio: Rosanna Bellini is a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell Tech in New York City. Her research develops data-driven and engaged research methods to tackle complex societal challenges, such as technology-enabled harms. Her work has been published in top-tier HCI and Security venues including USENIX Security, IEEE S&P, CHI, and CSCW, and featured in The Guardian, and BBC News. Her work is also recognized by multiple CHI and CSCW Best Paper awards, USENIX Security Distinguished Paper awards, and has led to changes in legislation for consumers and to consumer-facing financial applications for tens of millions of customers. She also helps to lead the Clinic to End Tech Abuse, a frontline service for survivors of technology-facilitated abuse, and has personally helped over 150 survivors reclaim their privacy, security, and financial freedom.