Cranor elevated to University Professor

Lorrie Cranor has been elevated to the rank of University Professor, the highest distinction a faculty member can receive at Carnegie Mellon. University Professors are distinguished by international recognition and for their contributions to education, artistic creativity and/or research.

Cranor is the director and Bosch Distinguished Professor in Security and Privacy Technologies of CyLab and the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy. She co-founded and co-directs the world's first Privacy Engineering master’s program and was founding co-director of the Collaboratory Against Hate: Research and Action Center. 

Cranor's research focuses on usable privacy and security with contributions in a variety of areas including anti-phishing technologies, usable and secure password policies, privacy "nutrition" labels, and tools to make it easier for people to protect their privacy and security. She founded the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security and co-founded the Conference on Privacy Engineering Practice and Respect.

Cranor has been named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and AAAS, as well as an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and a member of the ACM CHI Academy. She received the 2022 Carnegie Mellon University Distinguished Professor of Engineering Award, the 2018 ACM CHI Social Impact Award, the 2018 International Association of Privacy Professionals Privacy Leadership Award, and (with colleagues) the 2018 IEEE Cybersecurity Award for Practice and 2019 Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence.

In 2016 Cranor served as chief technologist at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. She is also a co-founder of Wombat Security Technologies, Inc., a security awareness training company that was acquired by Proofpoint. Prior to joining the CMU faculty in 2003, Cranor was a researcher at AT&T Labs and taught in the Stern School of Business at New York University. She holds a doctorate in engineering and policy from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2012 and 2013 she spent her sabbatical as a fellow in the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry where she worked on fiber arts projects, including a quilted visualization of bad passwords that was featured in Science as well as a bad passwords dress that she frequently wears when talking about her research.