Biographical sketches of Latanya Sweeney, Ph.D.
General Bio
Latanya Sweeney, PhD has made a career of weaving technology and policy together. Dr. Sweeney develops algorithms and constructs real-world systems that allow information to be shared with provable guarantees of privacy (legally and scientifically) while remaining practically useful. Dr. Sweeney has made numerous discoveries related to identifiability and privacy technologies and she has had significant impact on American privacy policy. Her work has received awards from numerous organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Informatics Association, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Dr. Sweeney’s work has appeared in hundreds of news articles, numerous academic papers, was cited in the original publication of the HIPAA Privacy Rule and was praised in the TAPAC Report that reviewed the Total Information Awareness Project of DARPA. She has also testified before the Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security and the European Union Commission. Companies have licensed and continue to use her privacy technologies. Dr. Sweeney is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where she also founded and serves as the Director of the Data Privacy Lab. She received her PhD in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her undergraduate degree in computer science was
completed at Harvard University (Extension School).
More information about Dr. Sweeney is available at her website
privacy.cs.cmu.edu/people/sweeney/index.html.
Academic Bio
Latanya Sweeney, PhD is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She also founded and serves as the Director of the
Data Privacy Lab,
which works with real-world stakeholders to solve today’s privacy technology problems. Her work involves creating technologies and related policies with provable guarantees of privacy protection while allowing society to collect and share person-specific information for many worthy purposes. Her work has received awards from numerous organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Informatics Association, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. The American College of Medical Informatics inducted her as a Fellow in 2006. Dr. Sweeney received her PhD in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. Her undergraduate degree in computer science
was from Harvard University (Extension School) where she graduated cum laude. She joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon as an Assistant Professor in 1998. She is the co-Director of the PhD Program in Computation, Organizations and Society at Carnegie Mellon and she is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Privacy Technology. More information about Dr. Sweeney is available at her website privacy.cs.cmu.edu/people/sweeney/index.html.
Surveillance Bio
Latanya Sweeney, PhD has made a career of weaving technology and policy together.
Recently, with her pioneering work on early detection bio-terrorism surveillance
using secondary sources, she has been constructing technologies for
what she has coined as "privacy-preserving surveillance." Dr. Sweeney develops algorithms and constructs real-world systems that allow information to be shared with provable guarantees of privacy (legally and scientifically) while remaining practically useful. Her earlier work on syndromic surveillance was with the ESSENCE project at Johns Hopkins University and the GEIS Project with the U.S. Army. Some of her earlier technology has already been licensed to companies
(e.g., www.privacert.com) and is in real-world use to demonstrate compliance with the HIPAA privacy regulation. Dr. Sweeney's work on privacy-preserving surveillance was praised in the TAPAC Report that reviewed the Total Information Awareness Project of DARPA. She has also testified
before the Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee
of the Department of Homeland Security (see http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/talks/DHS-05-06.html).
Her work has also been recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and been cited in numerous press articles and in the DHS Report on Data Sciences. Her work in medical privacy has received awards from numerous organizations, including the American
Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Informatics Association,
the National Library of Medicine, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association,
and was cited in the original publication of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. See
http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/projects/homelandsecurity/index.html
for more information.
Dr. Sweeney is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy
in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University,
where she also founded and serves as the Director of the
Data Privacy Lab.
More information about Dr. Sweeney is available at her website privacy.cs.cmu.edu/people/sweeney/index.html.
(See also 1 page CV)
Healthcare Bio
Latanya Sweeney, PhD is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She also founded and serves as the Director of the
Data Privacy Lab,
which works with real-world stakeholders to solve today’s privacy technology problems. Her work involves creating technologies and related policies with provable guarantees of privacy protection while allowing society to collect and share person-specific information for many worthy purposes. Dr. Sweeney has made numerous discoveries related to identifiability and privacy technologies and she has had significant impact on American privacy policy. Her work has received awards from numerous organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Informatics Association, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. Dr. Sweeney’s work has appeared in hundreds of news articles, numerous academic papers, and was even cited in the original publication of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Companies have licensed and continue to use her privacy technologies. Dr. Sweeney received her PhD in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. Her undergraduate degree in computer science was completed
at Harvard University Extension School) where she graduated cum laude. More information about Dr. Sweeney is available at her website privacy.cs.cmu.edu/people/sweeney/index.html.
Fall 2006,
Latanya Sweeney's Home Page
