I am Patrick McDaniel, the Tsun-Ming Shih Professor of Computer Sciences in the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a fellow of IEEE, ACM, and the AAAS. I work closely with a number of faculty doing research in various areas of security, systems, and policy, principally with the faculty of the MadS&P (UW-Madison Security and Privacy) security group of which I am a part.

My professional life is devoted to the pursuit of novel research in a broad array of areas of computer science (see below). As part of that pursuit I am fortunate to advise a number of exceptionally talented and committed graduate students and post-docs, as well as participate in many rewarding professional service activities. This website documents many of these activities, but is not even close to exhaustive. If there is something you wish to know or want more detail on information that is here, feel free to contact me directly.

The pages linked from the menu at the left cover broadly my research, teaching, and personal activities. Those wishing to speak to me in a professional capacity should contact me via email. Email is probably the most reliable way of contacting him (warning, responses may take a couple of days due to travel and other factors).

Contact:
Prof. Patrick McDaniel
Department of Computer Sciences
School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Room 7387/2255, 1210 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53706

Phone: (608) 263-1008
Email: mcdaniel@cs.wisc.edu
ORCID: 0000-0003-2091-7484
 Research interests: Patrick's research focuses on a wide range of topics in computer and network security and technical public policy, with particular interests in mobile and IoT device security, adversarial machine learning, systems security, program analysis, and the integrity and security of election systems.

Recent Teaching:
CompSci 839 - Emerging Trends in Systems Security and Privacy - Spring 2025
CompSci 642 - Intro to Information Security - Fall 2024

Recent Awards

  • Most Influential Paper Award of ICSE 2015, Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), for paper "IccTA: Detecting Inter-Component Privacy Leaks in Android Apps", 2025
  • Andreas Pfitzmann Best Student Paper Award (runner-up), Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS), for paper "Interest-disclosing Mechanisms for Advertising are Privacy-Exposing (not Preserving)", 2024
  • Most Influential Paper of PLDI 2014, Proceedings of the 35th Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI), for paper "FlowDroid: Precise Context, Flow, Field, Object-sensitive and Lifecycle-aware Taint Analysis for Android Apps", 2024
  • Test of Time Award, Proceedings of the 25th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), for paper "Semantically Rich Application-Centric Security in Android", 2024
  • Best paper (runner up), Proceedings of the ACM 2023 Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), for paper "The CVE Wayback Machine: Measuring Coordinated Disclosure from Exploits Against Two Years of Zero-Days", 2023
  • CSAW ARC Finalist, 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23), for paper "DScope: A Cloud-Native Internet Telescope", 2023
  • Best paper, The 2nd International Workshop on Ethics in Computer Security (EthiCS 2023), for paper "Understanding the Ethical Frameworks of Internet Measurement Studies", 2023
  • Tsun-Ming Shih Professor of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Endowed Professorship, 2022

Recent Speaking

  • Keynote, Adversarial Machine Learning: A 10-year Perspective, US-Taiwan Workshop on Cybersecurity, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA, March, 2025.
  • Distinguished Lecture, Adversarial Machine Learning: A 10-year Perspective, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, January, 2025.
  • Distinguished Lecture, Adversarial Machine Learning: A 10-year Perspective, NSF ACTION AI Institute Distinguished Lecture Series, Virtual, December, 2024.
  • Distinguished Lecture, Adversarial Machine Learning: A 10-year Perspective, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Champaign, IL, November, 2024.
  • Security and its Role in Achieving Sustainability, Workshop on the Architecture of Green Energy Systems: The Underlying Problem and Its Challenge, Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, June, 2024.
  • Distinguished Lecture, The Challenges of Machine Learning in Adversarial Settings: A Systems Perspective, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, December, 2023.
  • The Security of AI (what organizations need to know), TEDxUWMadison, Madison, WI, November, 2023.
  • Distinguished Lecture, The Challenges of Machine Learning in Adversarial Settings: A Systems Perspective, Computer Science Department, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI, November, 2023.
  • The Security of AI (what organizations need to know), Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, Madison, WI, September, 2023.
  • Securitys Role in Achieving Sustainability, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, Madison, WI, February, 2023.
  • Keynote, Securitys Role in Achieving Sustainability, 29th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), Los Angeles, CA, November, 2022.
  • Keynote, Security, Game Theory, and Their Role in Achieving Sustainability, Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security, Pittsburgh, PA, October, 2022.
  • NSF Funding: Why, What and How, School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences, UW-Madison, Madison, WI, October, 2022.
  • Keynote, Prognosticating the Future of IoT Security, 2022 IEEE SafeThings Workshop, San Francisco, CA, May, 2022.
  • Distinguished Lecture, The Challenges of Machine Learning in Adversarial Settings: A Systems Perspective, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, March, 2022.
  • The Challenges of Machine Learning in Adversarial Settings: A Systems Perspective, CACR Security Speaker Series, Indiana University, Online, August, 2021.

Recent/Current Program Committees

Past PhD Students

  • Eric Pauley (2025), CEO/Assitant Professor at DScope Security/Virginia Tech
  • Ryan Sheatsley (2024), Post-doc at University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Z. Berkay Celik (2019), Assistant Professor at Purdue University
  • Nicolas Papernot (2018), Assistant Professor at University of Toronto
  • Wenhui Hu (2016), Senior Member of Technical Staff at Oracle
  • Devin Pohly (2016), Assistant Professor at Wheaton College
  • Damien Octeau (2014), Software Engineer in Security at Google
  • Steve McLaughlin (2014), Senior Software Engineer at Samsung Research America
  • Thomas Moyer (2011), Assistant Professor at University of North Carolina-Charlotte
  • William Enck (2011), Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Security Sciences at North Carolina State University
  • Kevin Butler (2010), Professor at University of Florida
  • Machigar Ongtang (2010), Assistant Professor at Dhurakij Pundit University
  • Patrick Traynor (2008), John and Mary Lou Dasberg Preeminent Chair, Professor at University of Florida
  • Fr. Boniface Hicks (2007), Assistant Professor at St. Vincent College

Current PhD Students

Past Post-Docs

Patrick McDaniel - patrickmcdaniel.org