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 a Visiting Professor and Scholar
at Harvard University, was a
Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy
in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
and remains the Director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab, now
at Harvard University.
She received her PhD in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her undergraduate degree in computer science was
completed at Harvard University.
More information about Dr. Sweeney is available at her website
dataprivacylab.org/people/sweeney/index.html.
Academic Bio
Latanya Sweeney, PhD is a Visiting Professor and Scholar
at Harvard University, was a
Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Technology and
Policy
in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
and remains the Director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab, now
at Harvard University. Latanya's work involves creating technologies and
related policies with 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. In 2009, the was appointed to the Federal HIT Policy Committee.
Dr. Sweeney received her PhD in
computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
2001, being the first black woman to do so. Her undergraduate degree in computer science
was from Harvard University where she graduated cum laude. More information about Dr. Sweeney is
available at her website dataprivacylab.org/people/sweeney/index.html
and in numerous press articles, including
(Scientific American).
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://dataprivacylab.org/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://dataprivacylab.org/dataprivacy/projects/homelandsecurity/index.html
for more information.
is a Visiting Professor and Scholar
at Harvard University, was a
Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy
in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
and remains the Director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab, now
at Harvard University. More information about Dr. Sweeney is available at her website dataprivacylab.org/people/sweeney/index.html.
(See also 1 page CV)
Healthcare Bio
Latanya Sweeney, PhD is the Director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab
at Harvard University.
The Lab, formerly at Carnegie Mellon, works with real-world
stakeholders to solve today's privacy technology problems.
Dr. Sweeney, a Visiting Professor and Scholar at Harvard, previously a
Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Technology and
Policy at Carnegie Mellon
University, was recently appointed to the Privacy and Security
Seat of the Federal HIT Policy Committee, the group responsible for
advising ONC on policy for the new national health information
infrastructure. Dr. Sweeney's 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. She 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 and the
Health Breach Regulation. 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 where she graduated cum laude. More information about Dr.
Sweeney is
available at her website
dataprivacylab.org/people/sweeney/index.html.
Fall 2011,
Latanya Sweeney's Home Page
