Rate My Professor Rishab Nithyanand

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.