Hi! I am a PhD candidate in computer science and communication at Northwestern University, where I am part of the Midwest Uncertainty Collective and advised by Professor Jessica Hullman. My research is at the intersection of privacy and visualization. In general, I am interested in problems where technology and society meet, and where effectively using a technology requires grappling with hard social questions.

Rapidly increasing amounts of data can power extraordinary progress, but can also be a source of considerable harm if misdirected. I create tools that help society proactively direct data flows: which flows should we amplify vs. restrict to attain data’s benefits while mitigating harms? My work facilitates reasoning around this question in the context of data analysis. Specifically, I design and evaluate interactive interfaces and other abstractions that make differential privacy usable. These tools support people across the data ecosystem—data curators, analysts, and subjects—in weighing value-laden, probabilistic tradeoffs to decide how much “privacy loss” about an individual is appropriate during an analysis.

During my PhD, I have been supported by an Advanced Cognitive Science Fellowship and a Data Science Fellowship. I have also been a visiting PhD student at Columbia University, advised by Professors Rachel Cummings, Elissa M. Redmiles, and Gabriel Kaptchuk, and a visiting graduate student in the Data-Driven Decision Processes program at Simons Institute, UC Berkeley. I’ve also interned at Microsoft Research, where I was mentored by Drs. Jenn Wortman Vaughan and Hanna Wallach.

I co-founded and co-organize HCI+D’s PhD Book Club. During the academic year, we read books that help us think critically about technology and media. Please reach out if interested in joining!


priyankan [at] u.northwestern.edu
@priyakalot
@priyakalot