Computer Science Colloquium

Join GW Engineering's Department of Computer Science for another installment in their Spring 2024 Colloquium Series! The talk titled, "Computer security and privacy for marginalized populations," will be given by Dr. Lucy Simko, a Postdoctoral Researcher at GW! This is a hybrid event so you may either attend the lecture in the Lehman Auditorium or on Zoom.

Abstract 

Computer security and privacy is critical for vulnerable and marginalized populations because they can face more determined adversaries or higher consequences for security and privacy issues. At a high level, I work to explore why people are vulnerable -- through technical misdesign and societal systems. In this talk, I explore one reason: geopolitical change. First, I will explore how refugees in the US encounter challenges and barriers with authentication because of ill-fitted technology. Next, I will discuss the design and integration of biometric voter verification technologies into the 2019 Afghanistan election, finding a variety of design misalignments. Through these papers and others, I show the importance and difficulty of designing security and privacy for users' social, political, environmental, and technical contexts.

Bio

Lucy Simko is a postdoctoral researcher at the George Washington University in the GW Usable Security lab. Her work focuses on the security and privacy-related needs, practices, and experiences of under-served populations. Her research has been published at IEEE Security & Privacy, ACM CCS, PETS, CHI, CSCW, and ACM IDC. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the co-recipient of a Safe and Trustworthy Cybersecurity grant (SaTC). Lucy earned her PhD in Computer Science and Engineering in 2022 from the University of Washington.