Featured Alumni and Faculty
CMU Privacy Engineering graduates are building privacy infrastructure at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and leading AI companies—with starting salaries averaging $145K+. As organizations race to implement GDPR/CCPA compliance and tackle emerging AI privacy challenges, our alumni are the architects behind privacy-preserving systems processing billions of daily users. Meet the faculty pioneering privacy research and the graduates implementing it at scale.
Privacy Engineering: Where technology Meets Impact
CMU's Privacy Engineering program, led by former FTC Chief Technologist Lorrie Cranor and Norman Sadeh (co-founder of Wombat Security, acquired by Proofpoint), trains the professionals companies desperately need. As Cranor explains: "Most privacy problems cannot be solved by technology alone or by law alone." Our graduates—now at Google, Meta, Snap, Consumer Reports, and the US Department of Defense—prove this integrated approach works, commanding $136K+ starting salaries while shaping how billions interact with technology. From AI governance to GDPR compliance, learn the "third path" that makes CMU graduates the most sought-after privacy engineers in tech.
Privacy Alumni Feature: Dhanuja Shaji (MSIT-PE '17)
From math teacher in Dubai to Privacy Engineer at Snap—Dhanuja Shaji's career transformation showcases the power of CMU's Privacy Engineering program. Now leading Privacy by Design initiatives and building automated privacy review tools for 750M+ users, she applies CMU coursework daily: "Whether it's differential privacy, GDPR compliance, or third-party data sharing, everything I learned comes into play." Her advice to prospects? "Companies need you. You're not going to be looking for a job—they'll be looking for you."
Privacy Alumni Feature: James Arps (MSIT-PE '19)
James Arps transformed his liberal arts background in math and CS into a privacy engineering career at Google, where he now protects data across Corporate Engineering and Google Cloud Platform. His unique path—including a formative internship at a blockchain startup in China that sparked his privacy concerns—exemplifies CMU's interdisciplinary approach. "I might work on seven wildly different projects in a day," he says. "The curriculum I learned at CMU applies directly to everything I do, from giving users meaningful control over their data to solving consent fatigue at scale."
Exploring the Future of Privacy with Norman Sadeh
Norman Sadeh—co-founder of Wombat Security (acquired by Proofpoint 2018) and CMU Privacy Engineering co-director—doesn't just teach privacy, he builds it. From developing ML systems that decode privacy policies to creating personalized privacy assistants deployed at scale, his research tackles the hardest challenge: making privacy usable for billions. As AI governance becomes critical for enterprises, Sadeh's work bridges the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world implementation. See how his innovations in privacy nudges and automated compliance tools are reshaping how companies approach privacy engineering.
Making Privacy Usable: Lorrie Cranor's Research in Action
Former FTC Chief Technologist Lorrie Cranor co-directs CMU's Privacy Engineering program with a focus on making security and privacy tools people can actually use. Her research spans password usability, privacy nutrition labels, and IoT privacy challenges. As she notes: "Most privacy problems cannot be solved by technology alone or by law alone"—which is why CMU trains engineers to tackle both. Learn how her human-centered approach to privacy engineering influences both policy and practice.