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. More broadly, I 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 auditing, regulation, & 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 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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