Teodora Baluta
Security & Privacy | Formal Analysis of Machine Learning Systems
I am on the academic job market for positions starting 2024!
Invited Talks: CISPA, Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, UC Santa Barbara, Northeastern, Purdue, Georgia Tech, University of Waterloo, Columbia, University of Sydney, Arizona State University.
[CV][Research Statement][Teaching Statement]
I am one of the EECS Rising Stars 2023.
I’m a Ph.D. candidate at National University of Singapore (NUS), advised by Prateek Saxena and Kuldeep S. Meel. I am a part of the KISP lab, as well as MeelGroup.
I work in computer security. My thesis is on Rigorous Security Analyses for Machine Learning (ML) Systems, consisting of the following foundational aspects:
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Definitions: Stochastic gradient descent steps are collision resistant, under precise definitions and mild testable conditions [CCS 23]. This is useful in solving intellectual property disputes.
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Abstractions: We propose a causal model for stochastic gradient descent to analyze the connection between generalization and tests for memorization [CCS 22a].
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Sound procedures for statistical verifiability: black-box [ICSE 21] and white-box [CCS 19].
Broader Interests. I enjoy problems that are both algorithmic and practically relevant. I have also worked on differential privacy for graphs [CCS 21][CCS 22b], learnability of security analysis rules [NDSS 19], improving SAT solving using causality [SAT 23], and cross-language code translation [FSE 21][OOPSLA 23].
My research has been recognized and supported by the Google PhD Fellowship (2021-2023), EECS Rising Stars 2023, Dean’s Graduate Research Excellence Award (2022-2023, Sem.2), and the President’s Graduate Fellowship (2017-2021). I was selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship, Asia-Pacific (2021).
I was a Teaching Assistant @ NUS for several courses: Systems Security CS5231 Fall 2019, Systems Security CS5231 Fall 2018, and Intro to Security CS3235.
news
Jan 2, 2024 | Upcoming talk at CISPA on 24 Jan 2024! |
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Dec 31, 2023 | 2023 Talks in review: CCS @ Copenhagen, UCLA, USC, UCSC, UCSB, University of Maryland, Columbia, Stony Brook, EPFL, ETH. It was great to meet faculty and students in all these places. Looking forward to 2024! |
Nov 22, 2023 | 🎤 Final stop in the US: I gave a talk at UCLA, in the group seminar of Prof. Yuan Tian! Next: CCS 2023, Copenhagen. |
Nov 21, 2023 | 🎤 I gave a talk at USC. It was a great opportunity to meet faculty and students! |
Nov 20, 2023 | 🎤 I gave a talk at UC Santa Cruz! Had a wonderful time learning about some of the on-going security research at UCSC. |