Zoë Ruha Bell

Contact at: zbell (at) berkeley (dot) edu

I am a member of the following groups at UC Berkeley:

I am funded by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).

I am a 5th-year PhD student at UC Berkeley studying Theoretical Computer Science (TCS). I research the development of accountability mechanisms for data sharing systems, including statistical data analysis & machine learning. Currently, I believe that utilizing the intellectual toolkit from cryptography is a promising way to tackle these problems due to its ability to reason about parties with disparate resources, power, & goals and expand the solution space in surprising ways. Specifically, I currently utilize tools such as interactive & zero-knowledge proofs, differential privacy, property testing, and robust statistics. Most of my theoretical works include proof-of-concept implementations demonstrating their practicality. The current goal of my research is to create cryptographic protocols to support the work of data analysts, whether they be data scientists, quantitative social scientists, or algorithmic auditors. More broadly, I agree with others in the field that "cryptography is a social science masquerading as mathematics" and am passionate about Cryptography & Privacy in social settings, grounded in the theoretical, the applied, & in Computer Security, as well as a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Science, Technology, & Society studies (STS) lens, enabling connections to regulation, auditing, & policy.

In order to further foster these connections, I am pursuing the PhD Designated Emphasis in STS. More specifically, I am interested in conceptual history of modern cryptography and design anthropology for data privacy. The position I start such efforts from is articulated well by Bruno Latour’s "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern". Material-semiotic STS gives me tools to think rigorously about the societal work done by mathematical abstractions, critically about the cultural values embodied in my technical work, and imaginatively about what a more just science could look like, without falling into technosolutionism. Underlying all of my research is an abiding interest in TCS methodology, namely: what makes a mathematical abstraction "good," and what are useful methods for designing good abstractions?

I am fortunate to be advised by Shafi Goldwasser and Avishay Tal. During undergrad, I was honored to receive mentorship in TCS from Paul Beame and Nicolas Pippenger, and in STS from Marianne de Laet. Before starting my PhD, I majored in mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, with a minor in STS.

Outside of research, I enjoy urban hiking & biking, going to art fairs & farmers' markets, playing cooperative board games & indie tabletop roleplaying games, reading mysteries, speculative fiction, & horror, and doing crafts such as wood carving, alcohol-marker coloring books, & meditative ink doodling. I have a long-standing love for my hometown of Seattle.

Also, a rec: as a grad student with many grad student friends, I know it can be tricky to find time for longer TRPG campaign games like DnD. Fortunately, there's a whole ecosystem of amazing one-shot, pick-up-and-play games out there which don't require a gamemaster or prepping a bunch of stuff in advance! Some recommendations broken down by genre, type of mechanics, and price:

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