Nicolas Papernot
Nicolas Papernot is an associate professor at the University of Toronto who works on the security and privacy of machine learning. His doctoral work at Penn State addressed the security of deep learning, and in 2016 he became one of 39 Google PhD Fellows. In 2019 he was recruited to Toronto and the Vector Institute, and his differentially private machine learning work won a best paper award at ICLR 2017 and an outstanding paper award at ICLR 2022. He co-founded the IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning (SaTML) and received the Steacie Prize in 2025. As of October 2026, he co-directs the Canadian AI Safety Institute research program at CIFAR.
- Now at
- University of Toronto, CIFAR and Vector Institute
- Works
- 214
- Citations
- 24,304
- h-index
- 48
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.
Timeline
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By 2016
A Google PhD Fellow at Penn State
Before his doctorate at Penn State under Patrick McDaniel, he studies in a double master's program with Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France. In 2016 he is one of 39 Google PhD Fellows, nominated for research on the security of deep learning.
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2017
A best paper at ICLR 2017
His work on differentially private machine learning wins a best paper award at ICLR 2017. He is also a co-author of CleverHans, an open-source library.
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2019
Recruited to Toronto from Google Brain
He is a research scientist at Google Brain when he is recruited to the University of Toronto and the Vector Institute in 2019, as part of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy.
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2022
Outstanding paper and Sloan fellowship
His paper with Thomas Steinke, Hyperparameter Tuning with Renyi Differential Privacy, wins an outstanding paper award at ICLR 2022. In 2022 he is also named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in computer science.
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2023–2024
Co-founding the SaTML conference
He co-founds the IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning (SaTML) and serves as its program co-chair in 2023 and 2024.
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2024
McCharles and ACM SIGSAC prizes
He receives the McCharles Prize for Early Career Research Distinction and the ACM SIGSAC Outstanding Early-Career Researcher Award in 2024.
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2025
Steacie Prize and Samsung award
He is named the 2025 Steacie Prize recipient. At the Samsung AI Forum 2025 he is one of three Samsung AI Researcher of the Year winners. He also holds an International Chair at Inria for 2025–2027.
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As of October 2026
Associate professor at Toronto
As an associate professor at the University of Toronto, he works at the intersection of security, privacy and machine learning. Alongside that role he co-directs the Canadian AI Safety Institute Research Program at CIFAR. He is also program co-chair of the 47th and 48th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in 2026 and 2027.
Sources and credits
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- Computer science graduate student wins Google fellowship
- Nicolas Papernot - Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence
- Nicolas Papernot | USENIX
- Nicolas Papernot wins 2025 Steacie Prize | University of Toronto
- ICLR 2022 Awards
- Nicolas Papernot - HomePage
- Samsung Electronics Opens Samsung AI Forum 2025 - Samsung Semiconductor Global Newsroom