Researcher

Lujo Bauer

Lujo Bauer is a computer security researcher whose work connects usable access control and privacy with adversarial machine learning and AI security. He earned a B.S. in computer science at Yale and a Ph.D. at Princeton, developed Polymer for Java security policies, and coauthored a face-recognition study using printed eyeglasses. In 2025, he coauthored work on LLM prompt attacks and multi-host red teaming; ACM named him a Fellow for contributions to access control, usable security and privacy, and security of machine learning. As of October 2026, he is a professor at Carnegie Mellon and co-directs its Cyber Autonomy Initiative; he teaches machine learning for cybersecurity.

Timeline

  1. 1997–2003

    Yale and Princeton degrees

    He earns a B.S. in computer science at Yale in 1997 and a Ph.D. in computer science at Princeton in 2003.

  2. 2005

    Composing policies with Polymer

    In 2005, he coauthors Composing Security Policies with Polymer, a language and system for defining and composing run-time security policies for Java applications.

  3. 2014–2015

    Chairing security conferences

    At Carnegie Mellon, he serves as program chair for the Internet Society's NDSS in 2014 and IEEE's S&P in 2015.

  4. 2016

    Printable eyeglasses fool face recognition

    In 2016, he coauthors Accessorize to a Crime, a study that uses printed eyeglasses to fool face-recognition algorithms into misidentifying people or failing to recognize them.

  5. 2025

    Incalmo for multi-host red teaming

    In 2025, he coauthors Incalmo, an LLM-assisted system for red teaming multi-host networks. It uses LLMs to plan high-level tasks for domain-specific agents and reaches critical assets in 37 of 40 test environments, compared with 3 of 40 for existing systems.

  6. 2025

    LLM Whisperer

    At CHI 2025, he coauthors LLM Whisperer, which studies how subtle synonym substitutions in prompts can bias LLM responses toward a target concept. The experiments report a difference of up to 78% in the likelihood that LLMs mention the target.

  7. 2025

    An ACM Fellowship

    ACM names him a 2025 Fellow for contributions to access control, usable security and privacy, and the security of machine learning.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and cyber autonomy co-director

    As of October 2026, he is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Software and Societal Systems at Carnegie Mellon and co-director of the Cyber Autonomy Initiative. He researches computer security, privacy, usable security and adversarial machine learning, and teaches Special Topics in Security: ML for Cybersecurity in Fall 2026.

Career

  1. NowCarnegie Mellon UniversityProfessor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Software and Societal Systems

Education

  1. 2003Princeton UniversityPh.D. in Computer Science
  2. 1997Yale UniversityB.S. in Computer Science

Sources and credits

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  1. Lujo Bauer - Electrical and Computer Engineering - College of Engineering - Carnegie Mellon University ece.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Composing security policies with polymer - Princeton University collaborate.princeton.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. CyLab researchers spoof state-of-the-art facial recognition algorithms with printable eyeglasses - CyLab Security and Privacy Institute cylab.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. [2501.16466] Incalmo: An Autonomous LLM-assisted System for Red Teaming Multi-Host Networks arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. CyLab Cyber Autonomy Initiative - CyLab Security and Privacy Institute cylab.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Researchers to Present at ACM CHI 2025 - Electrical and Computer Engineering - College of Engineering - Carnegie Mellon University ece.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Bauer named 2025 ACM Fellow - CyLab Security and Privacy Institute cylab.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. CyLab announces Cyber Autonomy Initiative to advance AI-driven cyber defense - CyLab Security and Privacy Institute cylab.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Lujo Bauer users.ece.cmu.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.