Vanessa Thomas

Award-winning (Canadian!) computer scientist, inter-/anti-disciplinarian, and committed jabberwockian.

Role
Privacy Engineer at Apple
Location
Seattle, WA, US
LinkedIn followers
500 followers
Information TechnologyView LinkedIn profile

About Vanessa Thomas

I have been incredibly lucky and privileged during my career. Through a combination of wonderful coincidences and hard work, I\'ve surrounded myself with brilliant, humble, diverse and inspiring people. They have directly and indirectly challenged me to grow personally, professionally and academically in ways that I never could have predicted.In the last twenty years, I\'ve learned another language and worked as a professional using it. I\'ve volunteered with local, national and international organisations. I\'ve developed and used my skills as a technologist, educator, and mixed-methods researcher in academic, public sector, and non-profit organisations. I\'ve delivered presentations to large international audiences and I\'ve facilitated intimate workshops with local community members. I\'ve dealt with successes and failures. I\'ve been trusted with leadership roles and I\'ve thrived even during mundane assignments. Throughout all of this, I have tried to remain enthusiastic, optimistic, and humble—driven by a desire to connect with and support others in any shared endeavour.I\'m currently working on my various academic projects part-time, and I would still be happy to offer advice or support to anyone looking to do research related to my fields of expertise. Send me a message if you\'d like collaborate on, or get advice about, something! We can go from there:)

Experience

  1. Privacy Engineer

    Apple

    Nov 2024 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

    I work on the User Privacy team, which is responsible for:• Reviewing features to identify privacy exposures, providing guidance to engineers and leaders onthe right privacy technology to use, and partnering with teams to design mitigations;• Auditing new products to identify bugs in development, and reviewing customer data collected byengineering teams to drive decisions for privacy impact;• Communicating privacy risks and potential mitigations to senior leadership to drive decisions (10%);• Identifying emerging privacy threats; and• Partnering with technical experts in ASE to develop our roadmap for privacy architecture patterns forservices and their analytics systems.My areas of coverage include Marketing, Commerce, and AppleCare, and I\'ve had the privilege of being the lead privacy engineer on some exciting products and services.

Education

  • Lancaster University

    M.Res + Ph.D, Digital Innovation

  • University of Alberta

    Bachelor of Science, Specialization Computing Science

    2003 — 2006

  • Athabasca University

    Bachelor of General Studies, Arts and Science

    2007 — 2011

  • Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst, Toronto Metropolitan University

    Emerging Leaders Cyber Initiative, Cybersecurity

  • Royal Roads University

    Master of Arts, Interdisciplinary Studies

    2011 — 2013

Skills

  • Social Media
  • Internal Communications
  • Intercultural Communication
  • Spanish
  • Javascript
  • Web Design
  • Html
  • Xml
  • Project Management
  • C#
  • Css
  • Sharepoint
  • Ninja
  • Research
  • Strategy
  • Training
  • Newsletters
  • Government
  • Strategic Communications
  • Proposal Writing
  • Databases
  • Project Planning
  • Governance
  • Community Development
  • Leadership
  • Workshop Facilitation
  • Policy
  • Policy Analysis
  • Speech Writing
  • Editing
  • Public Policy
  • Corporate Communications
  • Communications Planning
  • International Relations
  • Politics
  • Media Relations
  • Gustographic Studies (Licking Stuff)

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Vanessa Thomas — Privacy Engineer at Apple in Seattle, WA, US | Unifers