Hana Habib

Hana Habib is an Assistant Professor in the Software and Societal Systems Department at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as the Associate Director of the Privacy Engineering Master's program. Her research focuses on user behavior and preferences when interacting with technology, with a particular emphasis on socially impactful issues such as security and privacy. Habib previously served as a software engineer at the U.S. Department of Defense and earned her Master's in Information Technology and Information Security, as well as a Ph.D. in Social Computing, from Carnegie Mellon University. Her work supports the development of tools that foster trust and safety in digital spaces, with unique insights into usability assessments of privacy choice interfaces. She has also contributed to multiple research projects exploring design interventions to mitigate the spread of harmful online content.

• 2022–Present·Carnegie Mellon University·Assistant Professor, Associate Director of the Privacy Engineering Master's program
  • Teaches core courses in the Privacy Engineering Master's program, such as Software Privacy Engineering, Privacy Topics, and Privacy Design Workshops.
  • Researches design interventions to reduce the spread of online hate content.
• 2021–2022·Collaboratory Against Hate·Postdoctoral Researcher
  • Investigated design interventions grounded in social psychology to effectively reduce the dissemination of hateful information.
• 2016–2021·Carnegie Mellon University·Research Assistant
  • Developed user study protocols to evaluate the usability of privacy choice interfaces.
  • Analyzed user study data using both qualitative and quantitative methods.
• 2015·Snapchat·Intern
  • Studied user behavior and decision-making contexts when sharing public content.
  • Assisted various company divisions in improving privacy engineering and legal compliance workflows.
• 2014·Apple·Privacy Engineer
  • Implemented and automated privacy engineering tasks while analyzing customer privacy requirements.
• 2012–2014·U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)·Software Engineer
  • Led the development and integration of new features for cryptographic management infrastructure.

• 2016–2021·Carnegie Mellon University·Ph.D.
  • Social Computing, advised by Lorrie Faith Cranor
• 2014–2016·Carnegie Mellon University·Master's
  • Information Technology - Information Security
• 2008–2012·Cornell University·Bachelor's
  • Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering