Lisa Oakley
CV | Google Scholar | GitHub | LinkedIn | Blog
oakley.l at northeastern dot edu
Pronouns: she/her
I am currently a Quantitative Researcher at Proof Trading, Inc., working on problems related to volume prediction, trading metric development, and detecting and controlling information leakage in US equities trading.
I received my PhD from Northeastern University in August 2025, where I was advised by Professor Alina Oprea. In my PhD, I studied the way tools from formal verification and probabilistic programming including probabilistic model checking and weighted model counting for exact probabilistic inference could be applied to verification of cybersecurity problems and differential privacy. I also developed methods for using probabilistic programming for privacy attacks. In addition to my primary research goals, I also worked on implementing adversarially robust reinforcement learning for cybersecurity applications, and applying reasoning from differential privacy to real world information leakage applications including U.S. equities trading.
Education
Ph.D. Computer Science, September 2020-August 2025
Thesis: Formal Probabilistic Reasoning for Cybersecurity and Privacy. 2026.
Advised by: Prof. Alina Oprea
Northeastern University, Boston MA
M.S. Computer Science, August 2022
Northeastern University, Boston MA
B.S. Mathematics and Computer Science, December 2018
Northeastern University, Boston MA
summa cum laude
Papers
A Bayesian Approach to Membership Inference for Statistical Release
Lisa Oakley, Sam Stites, Cameron Moy, Steven Holtzen, Alina Oprea, Marco Gaboardi
In Submission. 2026.
[project site]
Synthesizing Tight Privacy and Accuracy Bounds via Weighted Model Counting
Lisa Oakley, Steven Holtzen, Alina Oprea
In 37th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium (CSF). 2024.
[conference paper]
[code]
[project site]
Defining and Controlling Information Leakage in US Equities Trading
Arthur Américo, Allison Bishop, Paul Cesaretti, Garrison Grogan, Adam McKoy, Robert Moss, Lisa Oakley, Marcel Ribeiro, Mohammad Shokri
In 24th Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs). 2024.
[conference paper]
[blog post]
[code]
Adversarial Robustness Verification and Attack Synthesis in Stochastic Systems
Lisa Oakley, Alina Oprea, and Stavros Tripakis
In 35th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium (CSF, FLoC). 2022.
[conference paper]
[code]
[project site]
QFlip: An Adaptive Reinforcement Learning Strategy for the FlipIt Security Game
Lisa Oakley and Alina Oprea
In Proceedings of the Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security (GameSec). 2019.
**Outstanding Student Paper Award**
[conference paper]
[code]
[project site]
Talks & Posters
A Bayesian Approach to Membership Inference for Statistical Release
Lisa Oakley, Sam Stites, Cameron Moy, Steven Holtzen, Alina Oprea, Marco Gaboardi
Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy (TPDP) Workshop. 2026.
Developing Unsupervised Learning Techniques for Finding Information leakage in US Equities Trading Data
Arthur Américo, Allison Bishop, Paul Cesaretti, Garrison Grogan, Sam Markelon, Robert Moss, Lisa Oakley, Adele Shahi, Mohammad Shokri
Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy (TPDP) Workshop. 2026.
Synthesizing Tight Privacy and Accuracy Bounds via Weighted Model Counting
Lisa Oakley, Steven Holtzen, Alina Oprea
Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy (TPDP) Workshop. 2024.
Saying NO! to Workplace Surveillance: Lessons from Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute
Lisa Oakley, xenia dragon, Eysa Lee
Re-Imagining Cryptography and Privacy (ReCAP) Workshop. 2024.
What Does Privacy Mean for Stock Trading?
Speakers: Allison Bishop, Lisa Oakley
Other Contributers: Arthur Américo, Paul Cesaretti, Garrison Grogan, Adam McKoy, Robert Moss, Marcel Ribeiro, Mohammad Shokri
IACR Real World Crypto (RWC). 2024.
[video]
Differential Privacy Verification
Lisa Oakley
Northeastern Software Day. 2023.
Defining and Controlling Information Leakage in US Equities Trading
Presenters: Allison Bishop, Lisa Oakley
Other Contributers: Arthur Américo, Paul Cesaretti, Garrison Grogan, Adam McKoy, Robert Moss, Marcel Ribeiro, Mohammad Shokri
Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy (TPDP) Workshop. 2023.
Adversarial Robustness of AI Agents Acting in Probabilistic Environments
Lisa Oakley, Alina Oprea, and Stavros Tripakis
Workshop on Foundations of Computer Security (FCS). 2020.
[workshop paper]
[video]
Employment
Quant Researcher
Proof Trading, Inc.
New York, NY
September 2026 - Present
Part-Time Quant Researcher
Proof Trading, Inc.
New York, NY
June 2022 - August 2025
Research Assistant
Northeastern University Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute
Boston, MA
September 2018 - August 2026
Course Assistant
CS 2800: Logic and Computation
Instructors: Stavros Tripakis and Daniel Patterson
Boston, MA
Fall 2022 & Spring 2023
Course Assistant
CS 3000: Algorithms and Data Structures
Instructors: Huy Nguyen, Jon Ullman, and Laney Strange
Boston, MA
Spring & Fall 2018, Summer 2025
Software Engineering Intern
VMWare Tanzu Greenplum
Palo Alto, CA
June 2018 - August 2018
Software Engineering Co-op
VMWare Tanzu
New York, NY
July 2017 - December 2017
Course Assistant
CS 2800: Logic and Computation
Instructors: Pete Manolios, Thomas Wahl, David Sprague
Boston, MA
Spring 2017
QA Engineering (mobile) Co-op
Asics Digital (Runkeeper)
Boston, MA
July 2016 - December 2016
Administrative Assitant
BNY Mellon Asset Management Company LLC
Boston, MA
October 2015 - June 2016
Public Works Intern
County of Napa
Napa, CA
April - August 2015 & June - September 2014