Joel Reardon

Dr. Reardon’s research focuses on cybersecurity, an area in which Dr. Reardon holds extensive domain knowledge, particularly as it relates to smartphones.

In 2018, he co-founded AppCensus Inc., incorporated in California. This company provides privacy analytics as a service and is directly spun out of Dr. Reardon’s own research along with collaborators. AppCensus’ AppSearch service analyzes free publicly-available Android apps, and reports the private and personally identifying information that different apps access and share with other parties over the Internet. The company has already procured statements of work from Consumer Reports and a Fortune 500 company, and the team is in discussions with a number of other companies, government regulators, and non-profit watchdogs interested in their work.

Dr. Reardon is also in talks with two other faculty members in the Department of Computer Science to plan for a new startup surrounding the building and designing of a secure, coercion-resistant data storage and access tool for users travelling to hostile countries.

With his Innovation Fellowship, Dr. Reardon plans to offer informal mentoring and discussions related to start-up companies, and continue to share his research findings with students and industry professionals, the latter of which he has been active in engaging via workshops and presentations at professional conferences.

Students who are beginning to pursuing their own startup activities will benefit from Dr. Reardon’s expertise in the area of privacy, security, and integrating privacy-by-design principles into their startups. His recent experience in this area will help ensure that students structure their plans and products most effectively.