Welcome Prof. Zimmermann

Prof. Dr. Verena Zimmermann (*1990) was recently appointed tenure-track Assistant Professor of Security, Privacy, and Society. Aiming to bridge the gap between humanities and the technical sciences, there is no university better suited for her than ETH Zurich. In a recent conversation she shared her journey to ETH, what she is up to in the next months, and how she will contribute to taking the abstract topics of security and privacy out of the ivory tower. 

Prof. Zimmermann studied psychology at TU Darmstadt, where she focused on human-technology interaction. One of her first projects was on flight safety, collision warning devices to be precise, which introduced safety as focus of her research. This is where she initially got interested in human-technology interaction in connection with safety and security. During her master’s degree, Prof. Zimmermann then further specialized exactly in this area. Subsequently, in her Doctorate, Prof. Zimmermann focused on security in the IT area. In her time with the National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity (ATHENE) she experienced an interdisciplinary research environment, where computer scientists, as well as psychologists, philosophers, and lawyers came together. In contexts like this she experienced time and again that it is indeed possible to come to common concepts and productively cooperate in interdisciplinary teams - provided a shared basic understanding. After a while, Prof. Zimmermann was ready to start looking for new perspectives. Then, a colleague made her aware of the position of the professorship at ETH Zurich. She considers herself lucky to have found the professorship of Security, Privacy, and Society such a perfect match to her research area and expertise. Having the chance to contribute to bridging the gap between humanities and technical sciences at a university such as ETH Zurich is very special to her. Prof. Zimmermann is looking forward to the new and exciting opportunities the tenure track professorship offers to her. 

Right now Prof. Zimmermann is focused on building a team and recruiting people. One might think that only social scientists and computer scientists will be targeted, but once you realize that legal perspectives are also relevant and that policy making plays an important role in the privacy area, it is easy to understand that anyone who fits into the picture can become a part of her group.  
Prof. Zimmermann is happy about the openness at ETH for the topics of security. As she puts it, interest is fundamentally present and human-centered solutions play a big role. In the near future, she is looking forward to arriving more and more at ETH and establishing collaborations with various research groups. Prof. Zimmermann is aware that she is working in a very dynamic field. There are constantly new technologies and new application areas. She intends to reflect upon the acceptance of new technologies, their application and what is important for users. In the context of the tension between technical security and human-centered aspects, the latter often considered only a secondary goal, she will particularly focus on user-friendliness and human aspects, such as perception, cognition and decision-making. Here, among other things, the security vs usability trade-off is of interest. Prof. Zimmermann will look into ideas of how to make products more usable while keeping them secure at the same time. Note that, in her research, Prof. Zimmermann is particularly interested in the users, the citizens, the individuals - as compared to the state actors. Her aim is to develop measures centered around the users. Among other things, this means taking their privacy interest seriously and supporting them in implementing measures. In this context, she is also aware of the roles website operators and software developers, as well as policy makers (e.g. in light of the General Data Protection Regulation) have. She embraces her unique position to engage with several stakeholders and to raise awareness about the issues of security and privacy. This is of particular importance, since security and privacy are rather difficult topics to grasp. Thus, as a user, you usually do not understand what is really going on in the background. You might trust some certificates, but thorough evaluation is challenging. Therefore, Prof. Zimmermann will embrace both technology-initiated measures, as well as empowerment of users. The idea is really to make security and privacy more tangible and understandable. She emphasizes the need to understand what users like, what problems they are facing, and what needs to be worked on. The security and privacy area is very focused on the technology side, and human-computer-interaction research is not always taking security and privacy concerns into account yet. Here, Prof. Zimmermann intends to bridge the gap and, as she puts it, explore the human aspects on the human-technology continuum. In her research, Prof. Zimmermann exploits both qualitative and quantitative measures. She intends to foster awareness for various methods and their application to different topics or problems, also in her teaching. 

When it comes to her move to Zurich, Prof. Zimmermann points out how incredibly beautiful the city is. She moved with her husband and 20 months old daughter and, as she puts it, “the vacation feeling continues”. She is proud and happy to have her position at ETH and appreciates the chance to be involved in an emerging field. Being engaged in exciting research with computer scientists, where new perspectives can be brought in, is something she is very much looking forward to. This is the perfect opportunity following her doctorate, which at times had thirsty stretches, but where eventually everything fell into place. Successfully pushing through to the end of her doctorate is something Prof. Zimmermann shares to be proud of. 

There are a bunch of relevant topics that Prof. Zimmermann deeply cares about. In a recent conversation, she touched upon authentication methods, privacy leaks, humans being viewed as a source of error in cyber security, synergies between humans and machines, and ethical aspects. When asked to identify three core issues she deals with, she mentioned the following. First, there is usable security research, i.e. how to improve security measures, and how to make them more human-centric. Secondly, the question of how this works in a context where safety and security* come together in a linked system. And finally, how humans can contribute to this issue and how we can leverage human strengths. While she started out as a researcher focused on safety and later switched to researching security, she recently realized that these two issues totally come together. Therefore, combining insights from both disciplines and keeping humans in the loop is her current objective.  

 

* An explanatory note: while safety refers to ensuring operation and supply, protecting against accidents and errors (thus un-intentional issues), security is concerned with the protection against active (i.e. intentional) attacks