Rachel Cummings

Rachel Cummings

Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research

Dr. Rachel Cummings is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at Columbia University.

She is also an Affiliate in the Department of Computer Science (by courtesy) and a Co-chair of the Cybersecurity Research Center at the Data Science Institute. Before joining Columbia, she was an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and (by courtesy) Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests lie primarily in data privacy, with connections to machine learning, algorithmic economics, optimization, statistics, and public policy. Her work has focused on problems such as strategic aspects of data generation, incentivizing truthful reporting of data, privacy-preserving algorithm design, impacts of privacy policy, and human decision-making.

Dr. Cummings received her Ph.D. in Computing and Mathematical Sciences from the California Institute of Technology, her M.S. in Computer Science from Northwestern University, and her B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Southern California. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including an NSF CAREER award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award,  a DARPA Director's Fellowship, an Early Career Impact Award, a Provost’s Teaching Award, an Apple Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning Award, a JP Morgan Chase Faculty Award, a Google Research Fellowship, a Mozilla Research Grant, two doctoral dissertation awards, and Best Paper Awards at SaTML (2023), CCS (2021) and DISC (2014). Dr. Cummings also serves on the ACM U.S. Technology Policy Committee, the IEEE Standards Association, and the Future of Privacy Forum's Advisory Board, and is a Fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology. 

Research Areas

  • Security and Privacy
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
  • Applied and Theoretical Machine Learning
  • Data Privacy
  • Economics & Computation
  • Game Theory
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Trustworthy Computing
  • Data Analytics
  • Decision Analysis
  • Optimization
  • Algorithmic Fairness
  • Business Analytics

Additional Information

  • Professional Affiliations
    • Fellow, Center for Democracy & Technology
    • Advisory Board Member, Future of Privacy Forum
    • Member, ACM U.S. Technology Policy Committee
    • Member, IEEE Standards Association
    • Member, Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
    • Member, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
    • Member, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
    • Former Advisory Board Member, U.S. Census Atlanta Regional Data Center (ARDC)
  • Honors & Awards
    • Google NYC Cyber Award, 2023
    • DARPA Director's Fellowship Award, 2023
    • Early Career Faculty Impact Fellowship, 2023
    • Best Paper Award at SaTML, 2023
    • Center for Democracy & Technology Fellowship, 2023
    • Provost's Teaching and Learning Innovating Course Design Award, 2022
    • Best Paper Award Runner-up at CCS, 2021
    • DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2021
    • Apple Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning Award, 2021
    • National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Fellowship, 2020
    • NSF CAREER Award, 2020
    • JPMorgan Faculty Award, 2020
    • Google Research Fellowship (through Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing), 2019
    • NIST Unlinkable Data Challenge, Grand Prize Winner and People's Choice Award Winner, 2018
    • Mozilla Research Grant, 2018
    • ACM SIGecom Doctoral Dissertation Honorable Mention, 2018
    • Amori Doctoral Prize in Computing and Mathematical Sciences, 2017
    • Caltech Leadership Award, 2017
    • Simons Award for Graduate Students in Theoretical Computer Science, 2015
    • Best Paper Award at DISC, 2014
  • Professional Experience
    • Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Columbia University, 2023-present
    • Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Columbia University, 2021-2022
    • Assistant Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017-2020
  • Education
    • PhD, Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology
    • MS, Computer Science, Northwestern University
    • BA, Mathematics and Economics, University of Southern California