Dung Nguyen's personal homepage

I am currently a PhD candidate in computer science at the University of Virginia, and a Student Researcher on Google Research's Algorithms & optimization team in NYC. I study privacy-preserving algorithms (particularly under the differential privacy framework) in network science and machine learning with applications in public health policy and health care. My research addresses privacy-preserving algorithms on both theoretical and practical aspects, and from both computational and societal viewpoints:

• Can we solve fundamental graph problems under differential privacy with rigorous utility and privacy guarantees?
• How does privacy affect accuracy, usability, explainability, or fairness in real-world data analyses on sensitive domains?

In somewhat less technical terms, I design algorithms and systems that safeguard your sensitive information while enabling data holders, like researchers, government agencies, or other entities, to share valuable insights from your data with the world. No matter how hard someone examines the published data, they will not discover anything new about your protected information. Meanwhile, your data contributes to more precise research, more informed policies, and smarter AI.

My work on privacy has appeared in ICML, NeurIPS, IJCAI, AISTATS, AAMAS, and Nature Digital Medicine. My Google scholar profile is here. My advisor is Dr. Anil Vullikanti.

My email is <first-name><first-letter-of-last-name>@virginia.edu

Asterisk (^*) indicates equal contributions. (α-β) indicates alphabetical author order.

• 2024-25 UVA School of Engineering Endowed Graduate Fellowship (Copenhaver Charitable Trust Bicentennial Fellowship)

• 2024 winner of the data.org's PET Challenge, a worldwide competition focuses on using privacy-preserving techniques to integrate private financial data into epidemiological analysis pipelines for public health policy-making.

• Besides working in computer science, I love animals. I have four dogs and two cats, and I'm also a director at VietPaws Rescue Organization. Our ongoing mission is to save dogs, cats, and wild animals from the food industry in Vietnam¹. Recently, the first two have just arrived safely in the U.S.