Greetings from the plane! I’m flying back from the Programming Language Design and Implementation conference, where I (finally) presented our paper on Jacqueline, a web framework that prevents information leaks by making it easier to write secure web programs. Here is what the work is about. Wanted: The Double Hull for Information Security

I had the honor of delivering the 2016 commencement address at my alma mater, The Ellis School, an independent all-girls school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Here is the text of my speech about confidence, bravery, and the angst of doing things worth doing. Video here. Good evening everyone. I’d like to…

I first became aware of the problem when I took a female faculty interview candidate out to lunch a few years ago. “Deciding what to wear to interviews is a real challenge,” she had told me. “My advisor knows what the male faculty candidates should wear, but for me…

About Our Summer Program for Security Startups — Cybersecurity Factory summer 2015 teams in the Highland Capital offices. From our devices to our cars to our homes, software is coming to run our lives. It is exciting that software can help us remember friends’ birthdays, parallel park our cars, and manage the lights when on when we’re on…

Create change by giving people what they want. — Recently I have been talking to various people interested in starting diversity initiatives. A common theme seems to be the lack of interest or support from the greater community. When we started Graduate Women at MIT in 2009, we also thought this was the case. …

What feminism is and how to tell if you are a feminist. — Image from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10522448/9-male-feminists-of-2013.html It may feel, at times, that feminism is like how Dan Ariely describes teen sex: “nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.” Don’t worry; you probably won’t be left out. Chances are you…

What we can learn about the academic job search from reality TV. — From abc.com. The other day, I was talking to a friend who is trying to get a position as a computer science professor. Instead of working on his job talk (the research talk he was to give during interviews) he was looking at the profiles of his competition. …

On my summer at Facebook and what we can learn about gender diversity from Eastern European hackers. — My Polish intern friends at the Facebook company party. “I see you eating with the Polish kids,” a friend said to me. “I don’t get it. To be honest, it’s kind of weird.” Summer 2012, I was taking a three-month hiatus from my Ph.D. at MIT to intern at Facebook…

What it’s like being a student in this strange place. — View the Dome from one of the Stata Center lounges. Courtesy of The MIT Tech. “Are there other women there?” “Don’t worry, you’ll be done soon.” “How much money can you make once you’re out?” By these reactions you would think I was in jail, not doing a Ph.D. in…