I am Patrick McDaniel, the Associate Dean for Research for the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence and Tsun-Ming Shih Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am also 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 me (warning, responses may take a couple of days due to travel and other factors).
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Contact: Prof. Patrick McDaniel Department of Computer Sciences College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence University of Wisconsin-Madison
7657 Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave Madison, WI 53706 Phone: (608) 263-1008 Email: mcdaniel@cs.wisc.edu ORCID: 0000-0003-2091-7484 |
CompSci 642 - Intro to Information Security - Fall 2025
CompSci 839 - Emerging Trends in Systems Security and Privacy - Spring 2025
Recent Awards
- Test of Time, Proceedings of the 1st IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy, for paper "The Limitations of Deep Learning in Adversarial Settings", 2026
- 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
Recent Speaking
- What Does AI Mean to Our Future?, Shorewood Library, Shorewood, WI, June, 2026.
- AI Opportunities, Challenges, Misconceptions and Impacts on IT at UW, IT Professionals Conference 2026, Madison, WI, May, 2026.
- UW Now, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Virtual, May, 2026.
- The Challenges of Machine Learning in Adversarial Settings?, Berryville Institute of Machine Learning, Berryville, VA, April, 2026.
- What Does AI Mean for Our Future?, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Green Bay, WI, April, 2026.
- When is it Ok for AI to Be Wrong?, AI Meets Society Symposium (AIMS), Morgridge Hall, Madison, WI, February, 2026.
- What Does AI Mean for Our Future?, AFSCME Retirees Subchapter 52 (Badger Talk), Madison Labor Temple, Madison, WI, October, 2025.
- How to Read a Paper, CS900, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, September, 2025.
- What Does AI Mean for Our Future?, Wisconsin Public Library Systems / Winnefox Library System (Virtual Badger Talk), Virtual, September, 2025.
- The Security of AI (what you need to know), Day of Learning Program, Class of 1975, UW-Madison Gordon Commons, Madison, WI, September, 2025.
- The Security of AI (what you need to know), Alumni College, Red Crown Lodge, Woodriff, WI, June, 2025.
- What Does AI Mean to Our Future? (what you need to know), PBS AI Series Badger Talk, PBS Wisconsin, Golden Rondelle Theater, Racine, WI, May, 2025.
- 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.
Past PhD Students
- Blaine Hoak (2026), Assistant Professor at University of Texas at Dallas
- Quinn Burke (2026), Assistant Professor at The University of Arizona
- Eric Pauley (2025), CEO/Assistant Professor at DScope Security/Virginia Tech
- Ryan Sheatsley (2024), Post-doc at University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Z. Berkay Celik (2019), Associate Professor at Purdue University
- Nicolas Papernot (2018), Associate Professor at University of Toronto
- Wenhui Hu (2016), Senior Member of Technical Staff at Oracle
- Devin Pohly (2016), Senior Lecturer at Wheaton College
- Damien Octeau (2014), Senior Staff Software Engineer 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
- Jonathan Gregory (Spring 2030), Jean-Charles Noirot Ferrand (Spring 2028), Kyle Domico (Spring 2028), Kunyang Li (Spring 2027), Yohan Beugin (Spring 2027)
Past Post-Docs
- Ryan Sheatsley (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
- Vaibhav Rastogi (Northwestern University)
- Robert Walls (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)