SPEAKER BIOS

Welcome

Jamie Hine (event co-organizer) is a Senior Attorney in the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection 

at the FTC. He investigates and prosecutes violations of consumer privacy and information security 

under Section 5 of the FTC Act, the FCRA, the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule, and the GLB Act. 

His recent enforcement actions include MyLife.com, DealerBuilt, and ClixSense. He is also active in 

bankruptcy matters, notably In re RadioShack Corporation et al. Between 2008 and 2010, he served as 

an Attorney Advisor to Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour. He received his B.A. from the University 

of Pennsylvania and his J.D., M.S.I., and M.P.P. from the University of Michigan.

Opening Remarks

Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was sworn in as a Federal Trade Commissioner on May 2, 2018. 

Prior to joining the Commission, she served as Chief Counsel to Senator Charles Schumer of New York, 

the Democratic Leader. A native New Yorker, she advised Leader Schumer on legal, competition, 

telecom, privacy, consumer protection, and intellectual property matters, among other issues. Prior to 

joining Senator Schumer’s office, she was an associate in the D.C. office of Sidley Austin LLP. She 

received her B.A. from Yale University and her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Erie Meyer is Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission and an Advisor to Chair Khan. She 

was the former Technologist for Commissioner Rohit Chopra, and earlier, the Code for America 

National Network Director. Before joining Code for America, she co-founded the United States Digital 

Service. Prior to that, she was Senior Advisor to the U.S. CTO at the White House Office of Science and 

Technology Policy, where she worked on President Obama’s Open Data Initiatives, the Presidential 

Innovation Fellowship, and cross-agency efforts to improve technology in government.

Panel 1: Algorithms 

Basileal Imana is a fourth-year Computer Science Ph.D. student at the University of Southern 

California. His research focuses on security, privacy, and fairness in real-world systems on the Internet. 
2

His latest work on auditing for bias in targeted job advertisements received runner-up for the best 

student paper award at The Web Conference 2021. During his time at USC, he has also interned at 

Facebook and Google, where he worked on their infrastructure privacy and security teams, 

respectively. He received his B.Sc., also in computer science, from Trinity College in Connecticut. This 

research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of Southern California. 

Hongyan Chang is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Computing, National University of Singapore, and

is advised by Reza Shokri. Her research focuses on the intersection between robustness, privacy, and 

fairness of machine learning. Her research is funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic 

Research Fund; the NUS Early Career Research Award; the National Research Foundation, Singapore;

and Intel Corporation.

Martin Strobel is a Ph.D. candidate at the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing. 

Working under the supervision of Professors Yair Zick and Reza Shokri, his research interests are in the 

privacy and transparency aspects of machine learning, algorithmic game theory, and computational 

social choice. His research is funded by the NUS Early Career Research Award and the National 

Research Foundation, Singapore. 

Devin Willis (moderator) is a Senior Attorney in the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, 

where she leads investigations on data security and children’s privacy and helps advance the division’s 

outreach on algorithmic- and AI-generated consumer harms. She was previously Chief of Staff for the 

FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices, where she investigated and oversaw advertising referrals from 

self-regulatory groups, in addition to responding to congressional inquiries and leading law 

enforcement actions involving deceptive advertising claims, among other things. She also has served 

as Counselor to the Director. Before the FTC, she practiced civil rights and civil liberties law with a 

public interest organization and was an associate at Shea & Gardner (succeeded by Goodwin Procter). 

She earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Algorithms Presentation

Ziad Obermeyer is an Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, where he does research at the intersection

of machine learning, medicine, and health policy. He was named an Emerging Leader by the National 

Academy of Medicine and has received numerous awards, including the Early Independence Award—

the National Institutes of Health’s most prestigious award for exceptional junior scientists—and the 

Young Investigator Award from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. Previously, he was an 

Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. He continues to practice emergency medicine in 

underserved communities.

Lerone Banks (moderator) is a Technologist at the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection. He 

serves as a trusted resource for research and information on technology’s impact on consumers, 

supporting the FTC’s enforcement, policy, and education work. He received his B.S. in computer 

science from Norfolk State University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University 

of California, Davis.
3

Panel 2: Privacy – Considerations and Understanding

Nico Ebert is a Senior Researcher in the Information Security group at the Zurich University of Applied 

Sciences. With a Ph.D. in Information Systems, he has experience in the field of usable privacy and 

security with more than 30 publications in journals and conference proceedings. He currently leads a 

large research project with Swiss corporations and Intel Corporation on multi-party data analytics 

based on trusted execution environments. His research is funded by the Hasler Foundation. 

Siddhant Arora is currently a first-year masters’s student at Language Technology Institute at Carnegie 

Mellon University. He has completed his undergraduate study in Computer Science and Engineering at 

the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His primary research interests are in Information Retrieval 

and Natural Language Processing. He is working with Professor Norman Sadeh as Graduate Research 

Assistant on applying Natural Language Processing to extract useful information from Privacy 

documents. He is currently looking to apply for a Ph.D. in the intersection of NLP and privacy. His 

research is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Secure and Trustworthy Computing program

and Brandeis University. 

Cameron Kormylo is a third-year Ph.D. student in Business Information Technology at Virginia Tech. 

His primary research interest considers the intersection of behavioral biases, learning, and data 

privacy. His research uses econometric methods and experimental economics to model online decision 

making and the causal effects of privacy-related interventions. His research is funded by Virginia 

Tech’s Pamplin School of Business. 

Peter Mayer is a postdoctoral researcher in the SECUSO Research Group at Karlsruhe Institute of 

Technology. His research focuses on security awareness and education, usable authentication, and 

email security. Having graduated from Technische Universität Darmstadt with a Master’s degree in IT

Security as well as a Master’s degree in computer science with application subject “Biological 

Psychology" in 2014, he defended his Ph.D. thesis on "Secure and Usable User Authentication" at 

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in November 2019. He currently holds the roles of coordinator and 

co-speaker of the “Human and Societal Factors” group in the Helmholtz Association funded subtopic

“Engineering Secure Systems” at KIT. His research is funded by a Norton LifeLock Graduate Fellowship 

and the Helmholtz Association (HGF).

Danielle Estrada (moderator) is an Attorney in the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, 

where she represents the Commission in privacy and data security matters. She previously served as 

an Attorney Advisor to former FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, where she focused on privacy and other 

consumer protection matters. She also was previously a counsel to the Director of the Bureau of 

Consumer Protection, and an attorney in the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices. Before joining the 

FTC, she practiced litigation in private practice and clerked for the Hon. Peter Messitte in the District of 

Maryland.
4

Panel 3: AdTech

Imane Fouad is a last year Ph.D. candidate at Inria Sophia Antipolis in the PRIVATICS team. She is cosupervised by Nataliia Bielova and Arnaud Legout, Research Scientists at Inria. Her research is mainly 

focused on detection, measurement of web tracking, and compliance with the EU General Data 

Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive. Her research is funded by the ANSWER 

project.

Janus Varmarken is a Ph.D. student in Networked Systems at the University of California, Irvine, 

advised by Prof. Athina Markopoulou. He holds an M.S. in Information Technology and a B.S. in 

Software Development, both from the IT University of Copenhagen, and he has interned with 

Symantec and (currently) Juniper Networks. He is interested in “anything ubiquitous computing,” with 

a current focus on how smart home devices affect user privacy. His recent work on advertising and 

tracking on connected TVs (which is the basis of this PrivacyCon’21 talk) appeared in PETS’20, and he is 

also the co-author of an NDSS’21 paper on privacy of smart home devices. His research is funded by 

the National Science Foundation; the University of California, Irvine; and Minim.

Miranda Wei is a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer 

Science & Engineering and a member of the Security and Privacy Lab. She studies user-centered 

security and privacy and is broadly interested in supporting users’ agency and control over their own 

data. Her research was funded by the Transparency Lab, Mozilla Graduate Fellowship, and the UMIACS 

contract under the partnership between the University of Maryland and the Department of Defense.

Miles Plant (moderator) is an Attorney with the FTC's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, 

where he focuses on consumer privacy, data security, and credit reporting issues. Prior to joining the 

FTC in 2019, Miles was a Trial Attorney with the United States Department of Justice's Environment 

and Natural Resources Division, where he worked on complex civil litigation matters. Miles previously 

worked as an Associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, and he also clerked for the New 

York State Court of Appeals and the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

Miles earned his law degree magna cum laude from Fordham University School of Law, Master's 

degrees in criminal justice administration and public administration from the University of Colorado, 

and his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University.

Panel 4: Internet of Things

Anupam Das is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at North Carolina State 

University (NCSU). Prior to joining the NCSU, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at 

Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where he was a recipient of a Fulbright Science and Technology fellowship, 

and also worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon 

University (CMU). His research interests lie in security and privacy with a special focus on designing 

secure and privacy-preserving technologies. His current research direction focuses on exploring the 

security and privacy challenges in the era of Internet of Things (IoT), where he is focusing on designing 

systems that can help enhance transparency and control for consumers. His research is funded by the 

National Science Foundation.
5

Jeffrey Young is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Clemson University. His research 

interests include computer privacy and security. His research is funded by Clemson University. 

Pardis Emami-Naeni received the B.Sc. degree in computer engineering from the Sharif University of 

Technology in 2015 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Carnegie Mellon 

University in 2018 and 2020, respectively. She is currently a postdoctoral scholar in the School of 

Computer Science at the University of Washington. As part of her doctoral research, she developed a 

usable privacy and security label for smart devices to inform consumers’ Internet of Things-related 

purchase decisions. She was selected as a Rising Star in electrical engineering and computer science in 

October 2019, and she was awarded the CMU CyLab presidential fellowship for the 2019-2020 

academic year. This work was supported in part by DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory, the 

National Science Foundation, and the Carnegie Mellon CyLab Security and Privacy Institute.

Genevieve Liberte is a graduate student at Florida International University working towards a M.S. in 

Computer Engineering. She works in FIU’s Cyber-Physical Systems Security Lab, with a focus on 

researching the ways that the Internet of Things and other smart consumer technologies impact 

privacy. Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation. 

Linda Holleran Kopp (moderator) is an Attorney in the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity 

Protection. Ms. Kopp has practiced consumer protection and antitrust law for over 15 years in the 

private and government sectors, leading competition, privacy, and data security investigations in the 

mobile app, social media, entertainment, ad tech, and financial services industries, among others.

Some of her recent enforcement actions include Facebook, Inc., Cambridge Analytica, LLC, and Zoom 

Video Communications, Inc. Ms. Kopp received her law degree from Georgetown University Law 

Center, magna cum laude.

Panel 5: Privacy – Children and Teens

Mohammad Mannan is an Associate Professor at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. His 

research interests include Internet and systems security with a focus on solving high-impact security 

and privacy problems of today’s Internet. He received a Ph.D. in computer science in the area of 

Internet authentication and usable security from Carleton University. His research was funded by the 

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Cameryn Gonnella joined BBB National Programs in April 2020 as a Compliance Manager administering 

CARU’s COPPA Safe Harbor Program. Since joining the organization, she has also become a member of 

the Privacy Initiatives Team and the Global Privacy Division. She created CARU’s “Online Privacy for 

Parents,” a blog series aimed at making privacy concepts more accessible to parents and families. Prior 

to joining CARU, she headed regulatory privacy compliance at a location-data startup.

Manmeet Dhindsa (moderator) is an Attorney in the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection.

Immediately prior to joining the Commission, Manmeet served as Counsel on the Committee on 

Energy and Commerce in the United States House of Representatives, where she conducted 

investigations into various consumer protection issues. Prior to that, she was an associate in the 
6

privacy and data security group at Venable LLP, where she worked on various matters including those 

related to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

Panel 6: Privacy and the Pandemic 

Christine Geeng is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, 

University of Washington. A member of the Security and Privacy Lab, she does research broadly in 

usable security, from topics such as misinformation on social media, to interpersonal privacy with 

smart homes and with sexting, particularly for marginalized groups. She is also interested in 

researching how power intersects with security through constraining user choices or through creating 

differential vulnerabilities. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the 

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Marzieh Bitaab is a second year Ph.D. student at Arizona State University doing research at 

the SEFCOM Lab under the supervision of Dr. Adam Doupé and Dr. Yan Shoshitaishvili. Her research 

interests mainly lie in the field of adversarial machine learning and analyzing security issues in a wide 

range of topics. Her research was funded by the Arizona State University Center for Cybersecurity and 

Digital Forensics.

Christina Yeung (moderator) is a Technologist with the FTC’s Office of Technology Research and 

Investigation. Her research has explored topics ranging from data collection by child-directed apps to 

the practices of crowdfunding platforms. She holds a B.A in Economics from Bates College.

Closing Remarks

Lerone Banks (event co-organizer) is a Technologist at the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity 

Protection. He serves as a trusted resource for research and information on technology’s impact on 

consumers, supporting the FTC’s enforcement, policy, and education work. He received his B.S. in 

computer science from Norfolk State University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the 

University of California, Davis.