Four World-Class Professors Join Cornell Tech Faculty

Four new professors joined the campus’ world-class faculty this year, Cornell Tech’s most exciting to date with more than 100 students enrolled across three degree programs: the Master of Engineering in Computer Science; the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA; and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute’s MS in Information Systems specializing in Connective Media. The new professors bring cutting-edge work and research in privacy, security, viral marketing, human-computer interaction and mobile accessibility to these programs and build on Cornell Tech’s innovative and integrated research and teaching model.

“At Cornell Tech, our priority is to attract world renowned faculty members who bring the highest academic standards combined with real-life entrepreneurial success and spirit,” said Dan Huttenlocher, Dean of Cornell Tech. “I am thrilled to bring four new faculty members to campus as Cornell Tech undergoes a significant expansion – in academic programs, student body, faculty, staff and physical space.”

The new professors include:

• Shiri Azenkot, Assistant Professor, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech: Professor Azenkot works in human-computer Interaction, specializing in cutting-edge research in accessibility for mobile and wearable devices. Her current work focuses on eyes-free text entry that aims to enable blind people to use mainstream mobile devices as effectively and efficiently as their sighted peers. In 2014, she was a recipient of the University of Washington College of Engineering Graduate School Medal and Student Innovator Award. Her research includes public transit accessibility for blind and deaf-blind people and she has developed several educational smartphone games for blind children. Professor Azenkot joins the Jacobs Institute from the University of Washington, where she recently completed her Ph. D. in Computer Science and Engineering.
• Jonah Berger, Visiting Professor of Marketing: Professor Berger studies word of mouth, viral marketing, and how products, ideas, and behaviors catch on and become popular. He is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller “Contagious: Why Things Catch On,” has published dozens of articles in top-tier academic journals, and popular outlets often cover his work. Professor Berger will join Cornell Tech as a visiting professor from the Marketing Department of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph. D. in Marketing from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
• Ari Juels, Professor, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech: Professor Juels is a leading specialist in security and privacy, including “big data” security analytics, cybersecurity, cloud security, user authentication, privacy-enhancing technologies, medical-device security, biometric security and RFID/NFC security. In 2004, MIT Technology Review named him one of the world’s top 100 young tech innovators, and he was featured among Computerworld’s “40 under 40” young industry leaders in 2007. Professor Juels comes to the Jacobs Institute from RSA (the Security Division of EMC) where he was Chief Scientist. Professor Juels received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley.
• Vitaly Shmatikov, Visiting Scholar: Professor Shmatikov is a leading expert in computer security and privacy and aims to change how people think about data privacy, network security and software security. He works to discover high-impact security and privacy vulnerabilities, and develop solutions for those vulnerabilities. His findings have been quoted in rulings from federal regulatory agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Professor Shmatikov received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award and the PET Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (in both 2008 and 2014). Professor Shmatikov is visiting Cornell Tech from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph. D. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

The addition of the four new faculty members marks another milestone for Cornell Tech. This fall will mark the first semester with multiple masters programs, the M. Eng in Computer Science, the new Johnson Cornell Tech MBA and the first of the Technion-Cornell dual degree programs the MS in Information Systems specializing in Connective Media hosted by the Jacobs Institute. Students from the three programs will learn and work closely together, gaining a deep understanding of what it takes to be successful in today’s digital age.

The new one-year Johnson Cornell Tech MBA fuses business, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in a fast-paced, hands-on learning environment. Graduates will leave with a deep understanding of how technology is changing the way business works, and as leaders ready to start innovative businesses and transform organizations.

The new two-year Master’s degree in Connective Media is designed to educate students to understand not only the technology behind our ever expanding digital media, but the psychological, social and business forces at play in today’s connected media. The program will produce the next generation of tech talent to respond to, and drive, the digital transformation of media from news and information to personal communications. Graduates of this dual-degree program will receive a degree from both Cornell University and from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology. The Connective Media hub was announced in October 2013 with corporate collaborators including Hearst, Medium, Facebook, Betaworks, Tumblr, WordPress and The New York Times.

With more than 100 students this fall, Google is generously giving Cornell Tech additional space at its building in Chelsea. Construction is underway on Cornell Tech’s permanent campus on Roosevelt Island with a first phase – including the first academic building, corporate co-location building, and residential building – due to open in 2017.