David Choffnes

David Choffnes is a Professor at Northeastern University's Khoury College of Computer Sciences and Executive Director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (2021-2023). He is affiliate faculty at the Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity (CLIC). His research spans Distributed Systems, Networking, Privacy, Security, and Mobile Computing, with emphasis on IoT, transparency, and policy-relevant empirical studies.

His research has produced software with over 1 million users, including the net neutrality tool Wehe and ReCon for mobile privacy control. He has received major grants like a $10M NSF SaTC Frontier grant and industry support from Google, Comcast, and Verizon.

Recent publications focus on smart speaker profiling, data localization, and gig economy privacy risks, with papers accepted at top venues like PETS and IMC. He has won multiple best paper awards and serves on program committees for SIGCOMM, IMC, and IEEE S&P.

Awards include the

• Caspar Bowden PET Runner-Up (2024)
• IMC Best Paper Award (2023)
• NSF CAREER (2018)
• ACM Senior Member (2021)
• 10M NSF SaTC Frontier grant

He advises PhD students like Tianrui Hu (recently graduated), and leads the Mon(IoT)r Lab analyzing IoT privacy and security implications. His work bridges technical solutions with policy debates, collaborating with regulators and legislators.