ECE Student Nominated for Churchill Scholarship
Maya De Los Santos, E’25, electrical and computer engineering, was nominated for the Churchill Scholarship, which provides funding to American students for a year of master’s study at Churchill College, which is part of the University of Cambridge.
Maya De Los Santos, COE’25, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Mentors: Saiph Savage, David Kaeli, Tina Eliassi-Rad, Daniel Klug, Kevin Pacheco, Markiyah Bullard, Richard Harris, Julienne LaChance
Maya De Los Santos is dedicated to collaborating with marginalized communities to co-design socio-technical tools to advance agency over personal data and promote well-being. Her pursuit of Electrical and Computer Engineering within Northeastern University’s John Martinson Honors Program has equipped her with the technical skills to develop these tools, while her love for research has deepened her understanding of the impacts of privacy violations on vulnerable individuals. In 2021, Maya was selected for an NSF grant to participate in Carnegie Mellon University’s REUSE research program, where she published a first-author paper on TikTok users’ awareness of the platform’s privacy policy. Following this experience, she worked in Dr. Saiph Savage’s Civic AI lab as an AJC Merit Research Scholar, publishing four papers about her designs for human-centered AI systems that ensure fair work opportunities and privacy protection for crowdworkers around the world. Aside from research, she is also an active member of Northeastern’s Chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Black Engineering Student Society, serving as president of the former for an academic year. Maya hopes to expand her research in data privacy and AI fairness through a year of independent study offered by the Churchill Scholarship. While in the UK, she will explore how stronger privacy legislation affects mainstream and marginalized communities.