Rate My Professor Rishab Nithyanand

Rishab Nithyanand is the F. Wendell Miller Associate Professor, an Emeriti-Faculty Scholar, and CLAS Dean's Scholar in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Iowa, where he joined as Assistant Professor in 2018 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2025. He leads the SPARTA Lab, dedicated to privacy-aware and responsible technological advancement by addressing economic, social, legal, and ethical issues in internet-connected technologies and platforms. Nithyanand co-directs the Center for Personalization, Platforms, and Publics (CP3), an interdisciplinary group studying personalization algorithms and societal impacts, and holds a courtesy appointment as Member of Law Faculty in the College of Law since 2022. He also serves as Research Fellow in Social & Education Policy at the University of Iowa Public Policy Center since 2020. Prior roles include Ford-Mozilla Fellow at Data & Society Research Institute (2017–2018), Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Massachusetts Amherst (2017), Visiting Researcher at International Computer Science Institute (2015–2016), and research internships at Qualcomm Research and Sandia National Labs. Nithyanand earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stony Brook University in 2017 (thesis: DOCTor: Defending and Opening Communication via Tor), an M.S. in Computer Science from University of California, Irvine in 2010, and a B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering (with Distinction) from SRM University in 2008.

His research focuses on online radicalization and moderation, web privacy and anonymity, internet measurement, privacy, and social computing, with emphasis on platform transparency, sociopolitical impacts of the internet, and tech-related public policy. Key publications include 'Algorithmic Amplification of User Biases on Google Search: How Pre-existing Beliefs Shape Abortion-Related Searches' (CSCW 2025), 'Uncovering the Interaction Equation: Quantifying the Effect of User Interactions on Social Media Homepage Recommendations' (CSCW 2025), 'Turning Trust to Transactions: Tracking Affiliate Marketing and FTC Compliance in YouTube’s Influencer Economy' (CSCW 2025), 'Turning the Tide on Dark Pools? Towards Multi-Stakeholder Vulnerability Notifications in the Ad-Tech Supply Chain' (IEEE S&P 2025), 'How Audit Methods Impact Our Understanding of YouTube’s Recommendation Systems' (ICWSM 2024), and 'Glowing in the Dark: Uncovering IPv6 Address Discovery and Scanning Strategies in the Wild' (USENIX Security 2023). Major honors include NSF CAREER Award (2024), Andreas Pfitzmann Award Runner-up (PETS 2022), Google Faculty Research Award (2019), Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellowship (2017–2018), Open Technology Fund Senior Emerging Technology Fellowship (2016–2017), and Qualcomm Franklin Antonio Scholarship (2014–2015). He has secured approximately $4.9 million in total funding (his share $2.6 million), including a $1.7 million DoD Minerva grant (2023) for studying online manipulation and a NSF CAREER grant for privacy regulatory compliance audits. Nithyanand teaches Computer Security and Social Computing courses to graduate and undergraduate students.