Undergrads around the nation partake in CyLab research

Daniel Tkacik

Aug 20, 2021

Each year, dozens of undergraduate students enrolled at CMU and other colleges and universities around the nation participate in CMU's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), a program funded by the National Science Foundation to give undergraduate students real-life experience in scientific research.

This year, several CyLab faculty took students in this year’s REU class under their wings to pursue research pertaining to security and privacy.

“The REU program was a really eye-opening experience for me,” said Rafaello Sanna, an REU student mentored by CyLab’s Rohan Padhye on a project focusing on fuzz testing, a common bug-finding technique. “I had done some previous research work at my home university, but this gave insights into how research is done by Ph.D. students. Everyone here was incredibly friendly and welcoming, which allowed for a great time as well as a great learning opportunity.”

The REU program was a really eye-opening experience for me.

Rafaello Sanna, undergraduate student, University of Rochester

Sanna is a rising third-year undergraduate at the University of Rochester where he’s pursuing a degree in computer science. He said one of the big things he learned from his REU experience was how interdisciplinary research is—especially security research.

“I had interactions with tooling, programming languages, and low-level Java virtual machine internals, just to name a few,” Sanna said. “To ensure system security, all parts have to work together.”

Ellie Young, another REU student, is in her final undergraduate year at the New College of Florida. She spent her summer researching “dark patterns,” or manipulative tactics, that websites use to trick users into consenting to cookie tracking.

“I had an outstanding experience,” Young said. “I like working in CyLab because I find the problems to be very directly applicable to real problems humans are currently facing. It's satisfying when every guest and bystander at the final summer poster session can instantly understand and relate to the problems we’re solving.”

I had an outstanding experience.

Ellie Young, undergraduate student, New College of Florida

Roughly a dozen undergraduate students from as many colleges and universities around the country pursued security and/or privacy-focused research projects in this year’s REU program at CMU. Those research projects and their authors are listed below.

Rafaello Sanna

Source: CyLab

Rafaello Sanna is an undergraduate student at the University of Rochester. He was mentored by CyLab’s Rohan Padhye.

μ2: Breaking Programs for Better Fuzzing

  • Rafaello Sanna, University of Rochester
  • Rohan Padhye, CMU
  • Leo Li, CMU
  • Bella Layborne, CMU
Emma Shedden

Source: CyLab

Emma Shedden is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She was mentored by CyLab’s Eunsuk Kang.

A Reconciliation-Based Approach to Feature Conflict Resolution

  • Emma Shedden, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
  • Simon Chu, CMU
  • Eunsuk Kang, CMU
Mimi Winchell and Sarah Cai

Source: CyLab

Mimi Winchell (left) is an undergraduate student at Los Angeles Valley College and Sarah Cai (right) is an undergraduate student at the University of California-Los Angeles. They were mentored by CyLab's Bryan Parno.

A Verified Standard Library

  • Sarah Cai, University of California-Los Angeles
  • Mimi Winchell, Los Angeles Valley College
  • Yi Zhou, CMU
  • Sydney Gibson, CMU
  • Bryan Parno, CMU
Allen Marquez

Source: CyLab

Allen Marquez is an undergraduate student at California State University-Los Angeles. He was mentored by CyLab’s Steven Wu.

Benchmarking Platform for Differentially Private Algorithms

  • Allen Marquez, California State University-Los Angeles
  • Zhiwei Steven Wu, CMU
  • Terrance Liu, CMU
Megan Li and Ellie Young

Source: CyLab

Megan Li (left) is an undergraduate student at Harvey Mudd College and Ellie Young (right) is an undergraduate student at the New College of Florida. They were advised by CyLab’s Lorrie Cranor.

Dark Patterns in Cookie Consent

  • Megan Li, Harvey Mudd College
  • Ellie Young, New College of Florida
  • Hana Habib, CMU
  • Lorrie Cranor, CMU
Paul Smith

Source: CyLab

Paul Smith is an undergraduate student at St. Mary's University. He was mentored by CyLab’s Eunsuk Kang.

Measuring the effect of security enforcement on functional performance of a ROS 2 TurtleBot

  • Paul Smith, St. Mary’s University
  • Simon Chu, CMU
  • Changlian Zhang, CMU
  • Eunsuk Kang, CMU
  • Christian Kastner, CMU
  • Bradley Schmerl, CMU
Rachel Nguyen and Jenna Bustami

Source: CyLab

Rachel Nguyen (left) is an undergraduate student at Williams College and Jenna Bustami (right) is an undergraduate student at the University of California-Berkeley. They were mentored by CyLab’s Hanan Hibshi and Maverick Woo.

picoCTF: An Educational Platform with the Largest High School Hacking Competition

  • Jenna Bustami, University of California-Berkeley
  • Rachel Nguyen, Williams College
  • Xinyue Lai, CMU