Dr. Rebecca Portnoff has dedicated her career to defending children from sexual abuse. She holds a B.S.E. from Princeton and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, both in Computer Science, and has been working in the intersection of ML/AI and child safety for over a decade. She acts as an ecosystem leader to address threats against children via novel research, standard setting and cross-sector collaboration, bridging the gap between child safety experts, technologists and policymakers.
Rebecca is currently Vice President of Data Science & AI at Thorn, where the technology solutions and products her team builds have global impact: used across hundreds of law enforcement agencies, hotlines and technology companies. Rebecca is an MIT Tech Review 35 under 35 innovator and Fast Company AI 20. She serves on multiple advisory boards, including the UNICRI AI for Safer Children Advisory Board, the National Advisory Committee on the Trafficking of Children and Youth in the United States and ROOST’s Technical Design Committee. Her work has been recognised and featured by outlets such as The NYTimes, the WSJ, the AP, Forbes and more.
