Carmela Troncoso facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carmela Troncoso
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Carmela Troncoso in 2020
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| Born | 1982 (age 42–43) Vigo
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| Citizenship | Spain |
| Alma mater | University of Vigo KU Leuven |
| Known for | DP-3T protocol |
| Board member of | Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force |
| Spouse(s) | Rebekah Overdorf |
| Awards | Google Security and Privacy Research Award Fortune's 40und40 ERCIM WG STM Best Ph.D. Thesis Award (2011) CNIL-INRIA Privacy Protection Award 2017 |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) |
Carmela González Troncoso (born 1982 in Vigo, Spain) is a Spanish engineer and researcher. She specializes in keeping our digital information private. Carmela is also an LGBT+ activist.
She works as a professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. There, she leads the SPRING lab, which focuses on security and privacy engineering. Carmela became well-known for leading a European team. This team developed the DP-3T protocol. This protocol helps create apps to track COVID-19 infections while keeping people's privacy safe. She is also part of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force. In 2020, Fortune magazine named her one of their "40 Under 40" influential people.
Contents
Carmela Troncoso's Career Journey
Carmela Troncoso studied engineering at the University of Vigo in Spain. She graduated in telecommunication engineering in 2006. After that, she went to KU Leuven in Belgium. There, she earned her PhD, focusing on ways to design and analyze privacy technologies.
She continued her research at KU Leuven as a post-doctoral researcher. Later, she joined Gradiant, a research center in Spain. In 2015, Carmela became a faculty member at the IMDEA Software Institute. Since November 2017, she has been a professor at the SPRING lab at EPFL in Switzerland.
Research on Privacy and Technology
Carmela Troncoso's research focuses on creating technology that is good for society. She works on machine learning, privacy evaluation, and building systems that protect privacy.
Understanding Machine Learning's Impact
Carmela studies how machine learning affects our daily lives. She looks at both the good and bad sides of these powerful computer programs. Her work helps design systems that are ethical. This includes protecting people's privacy from machine learning-based attacks.
Her lab also researches "privacy evaluation." This helps people understand how much information they share online. It also helps software developers create apps that protect user privacy. They can reach their goals without putting users at risk.
Building Privacy-Safe Systems
Carmela also develops tools for engineers. These tools help them build systems that protect privacy from the start. She creates methods to check how well these privacy-preserving technologies work.
Based on her research, Carmela helped create Datashare. This is an open-source tool for analyzing data. She developed it with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Datashare was used to analyze information in the Luanda Leaks investigation.
Role in the COVID-19 Pandemic
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Carmela Troncoso led a large team. Over 30 people from eleven European groups worked together. They developed the DP-3T protocol. This project was part of the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) effort.
The goal was to create a contact tracing app that respects privacy. It would let people know if they had been near someone who later tested positive for the virus. Carmela was the main author of the paper explaining the DP-3T protocol. Google even said they were inspired by this protocol.
Her work on the DP-3T protocol and the SwissCovid app was featured in many news stories. She also spoke at events like the IMPACT2020 conference. She also contributed to the International Committee of the Red Cross' Data Protection Handbook.
Awards and Recognition
In September 2020, Carmela Troncoso was named one of Fortune magazine's "40 Under 40" in technology. This list recognizes 40 influential people under 40 years old.
Since 2020, Carmela has been a member of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force. This group advises the Swiss Federal Council and the cantons on scientific matters related to the coronavirus. She is part of the expert group on Digital Epidemiology.
She has received several awards for her work:
- ERCIM WG STM Best Ph.D. Thesis Award (2011)
- CNIL-INRIA Privacy Protection Award (2017)
- Google Security and Privacy Research Award (2019)
See also
In Spanish: Carmela Troncoso para niños
