Joanne Ma



Joanne Ma (she/her) is a mixed methods user experience researcher at Niantic Labs working on Trust and Safety and emerging technologies.  

Resume          Linkedin




Education       

2022
Master of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley School of Information

2020
Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies, UC Berkeley
Focus – Human Computer Interaction



Experience

Positions

2023 – 
Trust and Safety Mixed Methods UX Researcher
Niantic Labs 


2020-2022 
Graduate Student Researcher
International Computer Science Institute, Blues Laboratory for Usable and Experimental Security (BLUES)
https://cltc.berkeley.edu/2021grantees/

2021-2022
Lead UX Researcher
World Resources Institute, TerraMatch 

2021
Visiting Researcher
Carnegie Mellon University Co-Augmentation, Learning, and AI Lab

2020-2021
Research Fellow
The Center for Technology, Society & Policy

2019-2020
Undergraduate Researcher
UC Berkeley Center for Long-term Cybersecurity 

2015-2016
Design Researcher
Stanford Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences


Work

2020
Cybersecurity Consultant
Citizen Clinic

2019
Glass Room Ingenius 
Mozilla x Tactical Tech

2017-2018
Civic Engagement Manager & Public Policy Associate
Asian Law Alliance


Teaching


Fall 2022
Guest Lecturer / Fung Fellowship
Beyond Human Centered Design / Rapid Prototyping 
https://fungfellows.berkeley.edu/ 

Spring 2022, Fall 2021
Head Graduate Student Instructor
DESINV 200 Design Frameworks
https://design.berkeley.edu/

Fall 2020
Graduate Student Instructor
MS 112 Media Theories and Processes        




Service 

Spring 2023

Final Project Guest Critic / Stanford University
Trust and Safety Engineering

Spring 2023
Alumni Critic / UC Berkeley MIMS x MDes
Portfolio Review Night 





Publications   

Keming Gao*, Joanne Ma*, Julia Wang*, and Clarissa Wu*. 2022. “How much connection did you get?” Drinking Journaling Data through Hot Cocoa. In Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 409, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519800      

Alisa Frik, Juliann Kim, Joshua Rafael Sanchez, and Joanne Ma. 2022. Users’ Expectations About and Use of Smartphone Privacy and Security Settings. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 407, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3517504      

Nikita Samarin, Aparna Krishnan, Moses Namara, Joanne Ma, and Elissa M. Redmiles. 2021. Examining the Landscape of Digital Safety and Privacy Assistance for Black Communities. Workshop in Inclusive Privacy and Security, USENIX Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) 2021. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2210.17511

Emnet Almedom, Nandita Sampath, and Joanne Ma. (2020). Child Welfare: The Disparate Impact of Family Surveillance in Risk Assessment Technologies. Berkeley Public Policy Journal Fall 2020.

*denotes equal first-author contribution


Awards & Fellowships  

2022 Curtis B Smith Cybersecurity Fellowship

2022 Conference Travel Grant, ACM CHI 22 

2021 UC Berkeley Center for Long-term Cybersecurity Research Fellow Grantee

2021 Center for Technology, Society & Policy

2021 GREPSEC V Scholar

2021 USENIX Diversity Grant

2020 RSAC Security Scholar

2016 Apple WWDC Scholar

2016 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Award