Pronouns: she/her

✉️ Email me: sophie.stephenson [at] cs.wisc.edu

Hi, I’m Sophie! I am a ****PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, where I am part of the MadS&P research group. I am advised by Professor Rahul Chatterjee. Prior to UW, I earned a BA in math with honors from Vassar College.

I research interpersonal security & privacy (S&P). In particular, I use qualitative and system-building methods to (1) combat technology-facilitated abuse, hate, and harassment, and (2) study how digital S&P is negotiated and understood within non-adversarial interpersonal relationships.

My primary research goal is to understand and address technology-facilitated abuse in the context of intimate partner violence ****(IPV) and human trafficking. As part of this effort, I serve as Director of Operations at the Madison Tech Clinic, which provides free tech consultations to local IPV survivors.

<aside> 📰 What’s new?

March 2025

Our paper about legal evidence of tech abuse was accepted to CSCW ‘25! 🎉
I participated in a panel on tech abuse at The Network’s “Reclaiming Our Love: Social Justice & Domestic Violence” Conference in Chicago.
I presented a poster and chatted with prospective grad students at UW CS Welcome Weekend.

February 2025

Our short paper was accepted to CHI ‘25 late-breaking work! 🎉

January 2025

Our paper about tech abuse in human trafficking was accepted to CHI ‘25! 🎉

Older news </aside>

Publications

🎓 Google Scholar

2025

Sophie Stephenson, Naman Gupta, Akhil Polamarasetty, Kyle Huang, David Youssef, Kayleigh Cowan, and Rahul Chatterjee. Legal Evidence of Technology-Facilitated Abuse in Wisconsin: Surfacing Barriers Within and Beyond the Courtroom. ACM CSCW. To appear.

Sophie Stephenson, Lana Ramjit, Thomas Ristenpart, and Nicola Dell. Digital Technologies and Human Trafficking: Combating Coercive Control and Navigating Digital Autonomy. ACM CHI. To appear. PDF

Robin Koshelev, Jiaxun Cao, Danielle Kim Park, Marvin Tai, Pardis Emami-Naeini, and ****Sophie Stephenson. Investigating Legal Professionals' Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Technology-Enabled Abuse in Intimate Partner Violence. ACM CHI Late-Breaking Work (LBW). To appear. PDF

2024

Sophie Stephenson, Christopher Nathaniel Page, Miranda Wei, Apu Kapadia, and Franziska Roesner. Sharenting on TikTok: Exploring Parental Sharing Behaviors and the Discourse Around Children’s Online Privacy. ACM CHI. PDF ACM DL 📰 Coverage: UW Madison

2023

Sophie Stephenson, Majed Almansoori, Pardis Emami-Naeini, and Rahul Chatterjee. “It’s the Equivalent of Feeling Like You’re in Jail”: Lessons from Firsthand and Secondhand Accounts of IoT-Enabled Intimate Partner Abuse. USENIX Security Symposium. PDF [Webpage](<https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/presentation/stephenson-lessons>)

Rose Ceccio, ****Sophie Stephenson, Varun Chadha, Danny Yuxing Huang, and Rahul Chatterjee. Sneaky Spy Devices and Defective Detectors: The Ecosystem of Intimate Partner Surveillance with Covert Devices. USENIX Security Symposium. PDF Webpage ;login:

Sophie Stephenson, Majed Almansoori, Pardis Emami-Naeini, Danny Yuxing Huang, and Rahul Chatterjee. Abuse Vectors: A Framework for Conceptualizing IoT-Enabled Interpersonal Abuse. USENIX Security Symposium. PDF Webpage

2022

Sophie Stephenson, Bijeeta Pal, Stephen Fan, Earlence Fernandes, Yuhang Zhao, and Rahul Chatterjee. SoK: Authentication in Augmented and Virtual Reality. IEEE Security and Privacy. PDF IEEE DL

Frequently requested: LaTeX source code for Figure 4