* Names listed alphabetically.
^ Equal contribution or equal advising.
Additional publications available here.
"I Thought You Were The Uncensored Place": Norms, Rules, and Moderation in
AI-Generated Sexual Content Communities [Project Page]
Lucy Qin^, Jaron Mink^, Elissa M. Redmiles
AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES) 2026
"Unlimited Realm of Exploration and Experimentation": Methods and Motivations of AI-Generated Sexual Content Creators
Jaron Mink^, Lucy Qin^, Elissa M. Redmiles
ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) 2026
Examining Risks Through a Characterization of the AI Companion Application Ecosystem: A Stratified Sample from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store
Natalie Grace Brigham, Lucy Qin, Tadayoshi Kohno
AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES) 2026
Caught in a Mafia Romance: How Users Explore Intimate Narratives with Chatbots
Julia Kieserman, Cat Mai, Sara Lignell, Lucy Qin, Athanasios Andreou, Damon McCoy, Rosanna Bellini
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2026
Humanitarian Aid Distribution with Privacy-Preserving Assessment Capabilities
Christian Knabenhans, Lucy Qin, Justinas Sukaitis, Vincent Graf Narbel, Carmela Troncoso
Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS) 2026
Collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross
Stop the Nonconsensual Use of Nude Images in Research [Project Page, Research Guidelines]
Princessa Cintaqia, Arshia Arya, Elissa M. Redmiles, Deepak Kumar, Allison McDonald^, Lucy Qin^
NeurIPS 2025
Selected for Panel Presentation
"Did They F***ing Consent to That?": Safer Digital Intimacy via Proactive Protection Against Image-Based Sexual Abuse [Project Page, Video]
Lucy Qin, Vaughn Hamilton, Sharon Wang, Yigit Aydinalp, Marin Scarlett, Elissa M. Redmiles
USENIX Security 2024
Collaboration with the European Sex Workers Rights Alliance
Secure Account Recovery for a Privacy-Preserving Web Service
Ryan Little, Lucy Qin, Mayank Varia
USENIX Security 2024
Collaboration with Callisto
Synq: Public Policy Analytics over Encrypted Data
Zachary Espiritu, Marilyn George, Seny Kamara, Lucy Qin*
IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy 2024
You Still See Me: How Data Protection Supports the Architecture of AI Surveillance
Rui-Jie Yew,
Lucy Qin, Suresh Venkatasubramanian
NeurIPS Workshop on Regulatable ML 2023
AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES) 2024
Best Student Paper Runner-Up
Attached to “The Algorithm”: Making Sense of Algorithmic Precarity on Instagram
Yim Register, Lucy Qin, Amanda Baughan, Emma S. Spiro
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2023
A Decentralized and Encrypted National Gun Registry [Conference Video, Seminar Video]
Seny Kamara, Tarik Moataz, Andrew Park, Lucy Qin*
IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy 2021
Collaboration with U.S. Senator Wyden's Office
From Usability to Secure Computing and Back Again [Video, Slides]
Lucy Qin, Andrei Lapets, Frederick Jansen, Peter Flockhart, Kinan Dak Albab, Ira Globus-Harris, Shannon Roberts, Mayank Varia.
USENIX Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) 2019
Collaboration with the Boston Women's Workforce Council
Callisto: A Cryptographic Approach to Detecting Serial Perpetrators of Sexual Misconduct
Anjana Rajan, Lucy Qin, David W. Archer, Dan Boneh, Tancrède Lepoint, Mayank Varia.
ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS) 2018
Collaboration with Callisto
Accessible Privacy-Preserving Web-Based Data Analysis for Assessing and Addressing Economic Inequalities
Andrei Lapets, Frederick Jansen, Kinan Dak Albab, Rawane Issa, Lucy Qin, Mayank Varia, Azer Bestavros
ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS) 2018
Collaboration with the Boston Women's Workforce Council
Toward Safer Intimate Futures: Recommendations for Tech Platforms to Reduce Image Based Sexual Abuse
Lucy Qin, Vaughn Hamilton, Yigit Aydinalp, Marin Scarlett, Sharon Wang, Elissa M. Redmiles
European Sex Workers Rights Alliance Report. 2023.
Outside Looking In: Approaches to Content Moderation in End-to-End Encrypted Systems
Seny Kamara, Mallory Knodel, Emma Llansó, Greg Nojeim, Lucy Qin*, Dhanaraj Thakur, Caitlin Vogus
Center for Democracy and Technology Report. 2021.
CSCI 1952V: Algorithms for the People
Co-Instructor. Brown Computer Science. Fall 2021.
Hiding in Plain Sight: An Introduction to the Art of Cryptography
Instructor. Brown Pre-College. Summer 2021 & 2022.
I'm currently a member of a multi-stakeholder working group to address image-based sexual abuse.
Since 2018, I've been a part of Callisto's cryptography advisory board and was a contributor to the cryptographic design of their service, which has been used on over 580 college campuses.
Alongside Alishah Chator and Leah Namisa Rosenbloom, I co-organize the Re-Imagining Cryptography and Privacy (ReCAP) Workshop. The workshop seeks to explore the ways in which cryptography and privacy intersect with society toward designing, creating, and sustaining technologies that explicitly benefit marginalized communities. Join our e-list if you'd like to get involved!
The following are selected articles that discuss projects I have worked on, if you'd like to learn more! Wired Magazine, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, NPR, the Boston Globe.
While I was a PhD student, I was supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. In 2023, I was a finalist for the Meta Research PhD Fellowship.