I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford, where I was a Cisco Systems Stanford Graduate Fellow advised by Prof. Rajeev Motwani (RIP, Rajeev) and Prof. Ashish Goel. My Ph.D. thesis focused on protecting privacy when mining and sharing user data, and has been recognized by 2011-2012 Arthur L. Samuel Thesis Award for the best Computer Science Ph.D. thesis. I am a co-winner of the 2011 PET Award for exposing privacy violations of microtargeted advertising. My work on RAPPOR, the first commercial deployment of differential privacy, was a runner-up for the 2015 PET Award and is a recipient of the 2024 ACM CCS Test-of-Time Award. My recent research on discrimination in ad delivery, received the 2019 CSCW Honorable Mention Award and Recognition of Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion, was a runner-up for the 2021 WWW Best Student PaperAward, and was a winner of the 2025 FAccT Best Paper Award. I received the NSF CAREER Award in 2020, a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2024, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2025. Prior to joining Princeton, I was a Research Scientist at Google, a WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor of Computer Science at USC, and a Privacy Advisor at Snap.
I grew up in Latvia and graduated from Riga secondary school #40, spending fun weekends preparing for math olympiads at NMS and learning algorithms at Progmeistars. I am indebted for the many opportunities I have had to my family, amazing teachers at the above institutions, and to the George Soros Foundation. My outstanding high school mathematics teacher, Viktor Glukhov, now teaches and organizes math circles online.
I loved spending my college years at MIT, and especially enjoyed the classes taught by Prof. Patrick Winston. I first tried doing research in Dan Spielman's error-correcting codes class and Joe Gallian's Duluth REU.
In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my family, traveling, skiing and playing tennis.
I proudly support MEET, MIT and The Markup.
