Carolina Carreira

Usable Security | Security and Privacy | Software Engeneering

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I am a Ph.D. Student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (by Prof. Nicolas Christin) and Instituto Superior Técnico at the University of Lisbon (by Prof. João F. Ferreira and Prof. Alexandra Mendes).

My current research interests are usable security, software engineering. My focus is asymmetric communication in contexts of security and privacy. I’m interested in understanding how experts, end-users, and companies communicate about privacy and how we can improve this communication.

I also love volunteering, and I’m currently part of ACM SIGPLAN-M as a matching coordinator and I’m on the Student Committee at INESC-ID. I’m currently also collaborating with the Adamastor Project that aims to bring free public domain ebooks to more people. I played the violin and was part of my university musical group – TMIST. My hobbies include crafting and reading unpublished books.

Feel free to contact me using my socials to discuss any of these topics.

News

Nov 20, 2025 I’m going to SEFM’25 in Toledo, Spain to present “Can Large Language Models Help Students Prove Software Correctness? An Experimental Study with Dafny”
Aug 20, 2025 Excited to present my work “What Challenges Do Developers Face When Using Verification-Aware Programming Languages?” at ISSRE’25 in São Paulo, Brazil
Feb 20, 2025 I’m very happy to be visit the University of Porto, and will stay here doing research for one year
Dec 20, 2024 Proud to have received the Best Poster Award at Department of Computer Science of IST University of Lisbon
Nov 20, 2024 Happy to return to Tecnico, University of Lisbon for the year!

Selected publications

  1. ASE
    DifFuzzAR: automatic repair of timing side-channel vulnerabilities via refactoring
    Lima, Rui, Ferreira, João F, Mendes, Alexandra, and Carreira, Carolina
    ASE 2024
  2. arXiv
    A Systematic Review of Security Communication Strategies: Guidelines and Open Challenges
    Carreira, Carolina, Mendes, Alexandra, Ferreira, João F, and Christin, Nicolas
    arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.02109 2025
  3. SEFM
    Can large language models help students prove software correctness? an experimental study with Dafny
    Carreira, Carolina, Silva, ’Alvaro, Abreu, Alexandre, and Mendes, Alexandra
    In International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods 2025
  4. HICSS
    Evidence of Cognitive Biases in Capture-the-Flag Cybersecurity Competitions
    Carreira, Carolina, Aggarwal, Anu, Cuevas, Alejandro, Ferreira, Maria Jos’e, Hibshi, Hanan, and Gonzalez, Cleotilde
    Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2025