Masooda Bashir

• Director, Social Sciences in Engineering Research, College of Engineering, University of Illinois, 2013 - present
• Associate Professor, Coordinated Science Laboratory and Information Trust Institute, University of Illinois, 2013 - present
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois, August 2012 - present

The interface of information technology, human psychology, and society; especially how privacy, security, and trust intersect from a psychological point of view with information systems.

Masooda Bashir received degrees in mathematics, computer science, and psychology and earned her PhD in psychology from Purdue University. She worked for several years as a systems analyst, technical trainer, manager, and global manager for a number of corporations in Silicon Valley, including Lotus and IBM. Most recently, she was the assistant director for social trust initiatives in the Information Trust Institute (ITI) at the University of Illinois. In addition, Bashir has led multiple ITI educational initiatives, including the summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates internship program and the Illinois Cyber Security Scholarship Program. She teaches courses in privacy in the internet age, information assurance, ethics of cybersecurity, and digital forensics.

Current projects include:

• Principal Investigator and Director of the Illinois Cyber Security Scholarship Program, 2019-present
• Principle Investigator and Director of the IMLS Forum “Privacy Protections in Public Libraries," 2020-present
• Principal Investigator “Privacy Standards Evaluation for the Cloud” Funded by CISCO Inc, 2020-present
• Principle Investigator - Trust and Automation Research Project, Funded by Synchrony Inc 2019-2020

Previous projects/courses include:

• Researcher, Science of Security (SoS) Lablet, Information Trust Institute, 2013-2019
• Co-Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the Illinois Cyber Security Scholarship Program, 2009-2019
• Co-Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the Ethical Thinking in Cyber Space, 2017-2019
• Co-Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the Digital Forensic curriculum development, 2013-2017
• Principal Investigator of the "Enhancing the Cyber Security Workforce—The Human Angle," 2013-2016
• Co-PI of Assured Cloud Computing, 2012-2016
• Industrial Engineering 340/Psychology 358: Human Factors, Ethical Thinking in Cyber Space (CS 598), Digital Forensics (CS 498)

• Spring 2025 - Privacy and Info Technology - IS364A
• Spring 2025 - Independent Study - IS389MNB
• Spring 2025 - Information Assurance - IS464OAG
• Spring 2025 - Information Assurance - IS464OAU
• Spring 2025 - Independent Study - IS589MNB

By appointment, please contact professor

Complete List of Publications

Recent Publications

Hassan, M., Jameel, M., Wang, T., & Bashir, M. (2025). Unveiling privacy and security gaps in female health apps. ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2025). (Under review).

Raji, M., Wilder, D., Ugwuoke, V., & Bashir, M (2024). An Assessment of the Enforcement Mechanisms in African Data Protection Laws. African Journal on Privacy & Data Protection (Under review)

Tang, L., Bashir, M. "'When Robots Say Sorry in High-Stake Environment: Emotional Connection Might Matter More Than Explanations'," IEEE 5th International Conference on Human-Machine Systems (ICHMS), Abu Dhabi, UAE,  26-28 May 2025.(Under Review)

Kilhoffer, Z. and Bashir, M (2024). Cloud Privacy Beyond Legal Compliance: An NLP analysis of certifiable privacy and security standards. IEEE Cloud Summit 2024.

Kilhoffer, Z., Wilder, D., & Bashir, M. (2024). Compliance as baseline, or striving for more? How Privacy Engineers’ Work and Use Privacy Standards. International Workshop on Privacy Engineering.

Wang, T., Chin, C.-L., Benner, C., Hayes, C. M., Wang, Y., & Bashir, M. (2023). Patron Privacy Protections in Public Libraries. The Library Quarterly, 93(3), 294–312. https://doi.org/10.1086/725069

Muhawe, C., & Bashir, M. (2023). Privacy as Pretense: Empirically Mapping the Gap between Legislative & Judicial Protections of Privacy. The Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy.

Huang, H. Y., Demetriou, S., Hassan, M., Tuncay, G. S., Gunter, C. A., & Bashir, M. (2023). Evaluating user behavior in smartphone security: a psychometric perspective. In Nineteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2023) (pp. 509-524).

Tang, L., & Bashir, M. (2024). Examining Trust's Influence on Autonomous Vehicle Perceptions. In Proceedings of the 35th IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV 2024). Jeju Island, Korea

Hoff, K. A., & Bashir, M. (2014). Trust in Automation: Integrating Empirical Evidence on Factors That Influence Trust. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 57(3), 407–434. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018720814547570

Huang, H.Y. & Bashir, M., (2016, June). Measuring Privacy from Users' Perspective of Information Control and Perceived Risks. 9th Annual Privacy Law Scholars Conference, Washington D.C., U.S. Carnegie Mellon University – Workshop on the Future of Privacy Notice and Choice panelist. "Online Privacy Agreements, Is it Informed Consent?" June 27th, 2014.

Jethwani, M., Memon, N., Wee, J., Bashir, M. (June 2016). The Effectiveness of GenCyber Programs at Building Adolescent Girls' Knowledge, Confidence and Interest. Round Table presentation at The Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (CISSE), Philadelphia, PA.

Purdue University – The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) speaker series, W. Lafayette IN. “Online Privacy Agreements, is it informed Consent?” April 16th, 2014.

UIUC Campus Insights – Presentation to the Board of Trustee on the Program Develop-ment in Digital Forensics. September 11th, 2013.

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) – Center of Excellence of Assured Cloud Computing Seminar series, Rome NY. “Digital Forensics: a Multidisciplinary Approach”. August 21st, 2013.

Sandia National Laboratory – Panelist at “Symposium graduate panel”, Albuquerque NM, annual TITANS University Week. August 5th-7th, 2013.

Cyber and Information Challenges 2012 Conference – SUNYIT and the Cyber New York Alliance, Utica NY. “Consumer Privacy Choices, informed consent, and Baseline protections to facilitate market transactions in the cloud”. June 12th -14th, 2012.

Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) – Profiling and Prediction Roundtable panel member, West Lafayette, IN. Workshop “Does Profiling Makes Us More Secure?” March, 2012.

Air Force Research Lab – Assured Cloud Computing seminar, Rome, NY. “Privacy in the cloud: Going beyond the contractarian paradigm”. December, 2011.

Sandia National Laboratory – University Partners Cyber Open House and Workshop, Albuquerque, NM. “Trust - human dimension” Workshop. July 25th -27th, 2011.