Farinaz Koushanfar
Also known as Farinaz Kourshanfar
Farinaz Koushanfar works on secure computing and privacy-preserving machine learning at UC San Diego, where she holds the Siavouche Nemat-Nasser Endowed Chair. She earned a bachelor's degree from Sharif University of Technology in 1998 and a doctorate from UC Berkeley in 2005, and she was on the Rice University faculty from 2006 to 2015 before moving to San Diego. In 2018 she co-authored DeepSigns, a framework that embeds an owner's watermark in deep learning models to protect their ownership. President Obama gave her the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2010, and ACM named her a Fellow for 2022. She is also a research scientist at Chainlink Labs.
Timeline
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1998–2005
Degrees from Sharif and Berkeley
She earns a bachelor's degree from Sharif University of Technology in 1998. She completes a Berkeley doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science in 2005.
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2006–2015
Rice faculty, then UC San Diego
She joins the faculty of Rice University in 2006, where she serves as assistant, associate and full professor. She then moves to UC San Diego, where she co-directs the MICS center.
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2010
A Presidential Early Career Award
She receives the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Obama in 2010.
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2018
DeepSigns watermarks for models
She co-authors DeepSigns with Bita Darvish Rouhani and Huili Chen in 2018, a framework that embeds an owner's watermark in deep learning models to protect their ownership.
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2022
Named an ACM Fellow
ACM names her one of 57 Fellows for 2022, recognizing her contributions to secure computing and privacy-preserving machine learning.
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Since 2024
Siavouche Nemat-Nasser Endowed Chair
She becomes the inaugural holder of the Siavouche Nemat-Nasser Endowed Chair in 2024.
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2024–2025
NAI and AAAS fellowships
The National Academy of Inventors elects her to its 2024 class of fellows, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science names her a 2025 Fellow.
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As of October 2026
Research scientist at Chainlink Labs
Alongside her UC San Diego chair, she is also a research scientist at Chainlink Labs.
Sources and credits
Photo: UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY 2.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
- Farinaz Koushanfar - Wikipedia
- Faculty Profiles | Jacobs School of Engineering
- Farinaz Koushanfar - Bio/CV
- UC San Diego Electrical Engineering Professor Inducted Into National Academy of Inventors
- DeepSigns: A Generic Watermarking Framework for Protecting the Ownership of Deep Learning Models
- UC San Diego Computer Security and Privacy Pioneer Named ACM Fellow
- Farinaz Koushanfar
- Eight UC San Diego Researchers Elected 2025 AAAS Fellows