Rosanna Bellini

I am a Postdoctoral Scholar in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Security at Cornell University. Alongside my research into interpersonal harm and technology, I help to lead the Clinic to End Tech Abuse as the Director of Research. Find me at the Cornell Tech campus in New York City.

What drives me as a researcher is to make technology safer for every individual. Achieving this aim is far from simple: a growing number of users face harassment and hate each year, while the rapid emergence of new platforms and devices are likely to only worsen this trend. As the landscape of abuse continues to evolve, survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) face considerable threats, as abusers commonly exploit technology for stalking, monitoring, and intimidation. In theory, conventional anti-abuse mechanisms like privacy tools or blacklisting should defend against these threats. Yet abusers bypass these countermeasures via personalized, cross-platform attacks, and even use such mechanisms for further abuse.

As a scholar with an interdisciplinary background, I combine rigorous data-driven and engaged design research techniques from the fields of Computer Security and Privacy (S&P) and Human- Computer Interaction (HCI) to pioneer equitable, scientific approaches to detect and prevent technology-enabled harms. My research involves directly engaging abusers, survivors, and other stakeholders to:

• Analyze abusers’ goals, skills, and attack strategies across in-person and online contexts.
• Develop and deploy digital tools that change abusers’ patterns of behavior in community-based interventions, alongside software applications for assessment, training, and monitoring.
• Design responsive sociotechnical interventions to help survivors to reclaim their privacy and security and improve their financial wellbeing.
• Build a community of practice dedicated to safer S&P research involving at-risk users in academia and industry.

To minimize harm to at-risk users, benefit academic theory, and drive real-world impact, my approach encompasses both proactive and reactive anti-abuse strategies. To proactively address technology abuse, I lead efforts to redesign consumer-facing technologies by detecting areas of misuse, and develop digital tools that intervene with abusers to prevent harmful behavior. I couple these efforts with direct, reactive security services for survivors subject to ongoing attacks, and consult with consumer-facing banking, legal, and security services to offer targeted solutions that mitigate harm. In doing so, I and my wonderfully talented collaborators have contributed 21 publications, 15 first author, in premier HCI and Computer Security venues including CHI, CSCW, USENIX Security, and IEEE S&P ‘Oakland’.