Rahul Telang

Rahul Telang is a Professor of Information Systems at Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, with a courtesy appointment at the Tepper School of Business. He has been at Heinz College since 2002 and is currently the director of the PhD program at the Heinz College. Professor Telang is also co-director of the Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics (IDEA) and part of Cylab and the Institute for Infrastructure Protection (I3P).

Professor Telang's research broadly focuses on how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and digitization impact consumers, businesses, and policies. His work spans two major domains: Digital Media Industry and Economics of Information Security and Privacy. In the Digital Media domain, he examines how digitization and piracy affect content providers, distributors, and users, with the aim of shaping optimal copyright and intellectual property policy. In the security domain, he investigates the incentives of various parties (users, firms, and hackers), market failures, and policy frameworks for information security.

His recent research shows a strong focus on bug bounty programs, vulnerability disclosure economics, data breach impacts on consumer behavior, digital media consumption patterns, and the economic implications of AI on copyright policy. His work combines empirical analysis with economic modeling to provide actionable insights for both industry and policymakers, often using randomized field experiments and large-scale data analysis.

• Sloan Foundation Industry Study fellowship
• Multiple Google Faculty awards
• NSF CAREER award for work on economics of information security
• Senior editor positions at Management Science, Information Systems Research, and MIS Quarterly

Professor Telang has secured extensive external funding from the National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, and industry partners for his research. He has worked extensively with industry and policymakers on media digitization issues, consulting with major entertainment companies like Disney and Warner Brothers on streaming strategies. As deputy director of the "living analytics" (LARC) project, he directs research on digital and social media analytics in collaboration with Singapore Management University.

Professor Telang co-directs the IDEA center for digital entertainment analytics and contributes to Cylab's research on cybersecurity economics. His work on the Security Behavior Observatory has created infrastructure for long-term monitoring of client machines to understand security behavior, providing valuable insights into user security practices and vulnerabilities.