Assistant Professor Anwar Hithnawi, who joined the Department of Computer Science in January, has received Google Research Scholar Program funding and a Intel Outstanding Researcher Award for her work in privacy-preserving cryptographic systems.

Hithnawi leads the Privacy-Preserving Systems (PPS) Lab, where she develops technologies that protect sensitive data without sacrificing usability or performance. Her research explores ways to keep data private and secure while still allowing people and systems to use it effectively.

She designs compliers and frameworks that make advanced cryptographic techniques more efficient and accessible, demonstrating how rigorous privacy protections can be integrated into real-world systems.

The Google Research Scholar Program supports early-career faculty conducting research in areas relevant to Google. The Intel Outstanding Researcher Award recognizes academic researchers whose work significantly advances the future of technology.

Before joining the University of Toronto, Hithnawi was a faculty member at ETH Zürich, where she founded the PPS Lab. She has supervised graduate students, published extensively in top venues and helped shape the global conversation around secure, privacy-aware computation.