People
Outgoing PhDs and Postdocs

Outgoing Ph.D. Students

Photo of Melissa Chen
Advisor(s): Professor Eleanor O'Rourke
Research Area(s): Human-Computer Interaction and Computing Education
Thesis Topic: Designing sociotechnical learning environments to support student self-efficacy in computing education
Planned PhD Defense Date: Summer 2027
Employment Preference: Postdocs and tenure-track faculty positions
Photo of Natalia Denisenko

Natalia Denisenko

Email Natalia
Advisor(s): Professor VS Subrahmanian
Research Area(s):  Intersection of AI and security
Thesis Topic:  “Investigations into the Role of AI in Deception.”
Planned PhD Defense Date: Fall/Winter 2026/2027
Employment Preference: Industry research positions

Tochukwu Eze

Advisor(s): Professor Marcelo Worsley
Research Area(s):  
Thesis Topic:  
Planned PhD Defense Date:
Employment Preference: 
Photo of Negar Kamali
Advisor(s): Professors Matthew Groh and Jessica Hullman
Research Area(s): Human-AI interaction; AI-assisted decision-making; human detection of AI-generated media (deepfakes); AI alignment; Mechanistic Interpretability
Thesis Topic: Human-AI Collaboration for Detecting AI-generated Media
Planned PhD Defense Date: Summer 2027
Employment Preference: Industry Research Labs/Postdocs
Photo of Radhika Garg
Advisor(s): Professor Xiao Wang
Research Area(s): Applied Cryptography
Thesis Topic: Toward Deployable Secure Multiparty Computation
Planned PhD Defense Date: October 12, 2026
Employment Preference: Industry Research/Research Scientist
Photo of Robin Luo
Advisor(s): Yan Chen
Research Area(s): Efficient and Responsible Foundation Models
Thesis Topic: Measuring Internet Centralization on the Web (DNS, CDNs, CAs) and the Underlying Infrastructure
Employment Preference: Efficient and Trustworthy LLM Agent for Cloud-Native Automation Operation
Planned PhD Defense Date: Spring 2027
Photo of Donghyun Sohn
Advisor(s): Professor Jennie Rogers
Research Area(s): Database management system, privacy preserving database
Thesis Topic: Building and Operating Privacy-Preserving Database Management Systems with Safe Metadata
Employment Preference: Industry Position
Planned PhD Defense Date: Late May 2027

Mara Ulloa

Advisor(s): Professor Maia Jacobs
Research Area(s): 
Thesis Topic: 
Employment Preference: 
Planned PhD Defense Date: 

Postdocs Currently on the Job Market

Rashna Kumar

Email Rashna
Northwestern Advisor(s): Fabian Bustamante
PhD Institution & Advisor(s): Northwestern University
Research Area(s): 
Thesis Topic: Consolidation and Consequence in Web Delivery Infrastructure
Employment Preference: 

Jason Smith

Northwestern Advisor(s): 
PhD Institution & Advisor(s): Georgia Institute of Technology
Research Area(s): 
Thesis Topic: 
Employment Preference: 

Jeremy Vollen

Northwestern Advisor(s): 
PhD Institution & Advisor(s): University of New South Wales
Research Area(s): 
Thesis Topic: 
Employment Preference: