Alessandro Acquisti

Ph.D. 2003
Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University

Degrees

Ph.D., Information Management & Systems, UC Berkeley, 2003; MIMS, UC Berkeley, 2001; M.Sc., Econometrics & Mathematical Economics, London School of Economics, 1999; M.Litt., Trinity College Dublin, Economics, 1999; Laurea, Economics & Business, University of Rome La Sapienza, 1997

Why I Chose the I School

I wanted to apply my economics background to information technology problems, and the I School had faculty doing stellar research in that area. I started out interested in artificial intelligence and economics and ended up focusing on economic aspects of privacy and information security, which has become the emphasis of my research as a CMU professor.

Information Issue That Intrigues Me

How people make decisions about privacy that seem puzzling or contradictory. I’ve used tools from economics and psychology to analyze privacy decision-making and have explored privacy and security issues related to online social networks. In one study, my CMU students and I discovered that we could predict Social Security numbers from information publicly available in people’s online profiles. Published in July 2009 with the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, our research attracted attention from policymakers interested in information security and identity theft prevention.