Kelsey Fulton

Security researcher. Climber. Rat parent. (They/Them/Theirs)

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CTLM 214C

1650 Arapahoe St

Golden, CO 80401

I’m an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines where I run the Security and People at Mines (SPAM) lab. I received my PhD from the University of Maryland, where I was advised by Michelle Mazurek in the Security, Privacy, and People Lab (SP2).

My research exists at the intersection of people and security and privacy. The goal of my research is to improve peoples’ understandings and implementations of security and privacy by empirically evaluating their experiences and knowledge. Recent research has focused on:

  • Improving security and privacy education at the K-12 level
  • Exploring the impacts of AI on security and privacy in various capacities (K-12 spaces, software development, study design, etc)
  • Improving the adoption of secure tools and programming languages (fuzzers, Rust, etc)

As a result of my work, I aim to provide scientifically-based recommendations for the improvement of secure development, security and privacy education, and the security and privacy considerations of emerging AI technologies.

I am fortunate to work with a number of incredible graduate students:

  • Kelly Fisher (CS PhD)
  • Jake Hoekstra (CS PhD)
  • Jack Kingham (CS PhD)
  • Katy Limes (CS PhD)

I do not currenlty have any openings for PhD students. I have a few openings for excited, motivated undergraduate and Master’s students. Prospective students can look at the prospective students page for details.

news

Sep 2025 BAD NEWS: Grant rejected from OpenAI Cybersecurity Grant program.
Jul 2025 BAD NEWS: Paper rejected from IEEE S&P.
Jun 2024 GOOD NEWS: Our paper detailing the system we built for remote secure development studies has been accepted at CSET 2024!
May 2024 GOOD NEWS: Our paper exploring alternatives to code writing as a method for secure development studies has been accepted at SOUPS 2024!
May 2024 GOOD NEWS: Work with colleagues exploring the coomunity experiences of security professionals has been accepted at SOUPS 2024!

selected publications

  1. Write, Read, or Fix? Exploring Alternative Methods for Secure Development Studies
    Kelsey R Fulton , Joseph Lewis , Nathan Malkin, and 1 more author
    In Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security , 2024
  2. S&P
    Vulnerability Discovery for All: Experiences of Marginalization in Vulnerability Discovery
    Kelsey R Fulton , S. Katcher , K. Song , and 4 more authors
    In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy , 2023
  3. CCS
    Understanding the How and the Why: Exploring Secure Development Practices through a Course Competition
    Kelsey R Fulton , Daniel Votipka, Desiree Abrokwa , and 3 more authors
    In ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security , 2022
  4. Benefits and Drawbacks of Adopting a Secure Programming Language: Rust as a Case Study
    Kelsey R Fulton , Anna Chan , Daniel Votipka, and 2 more authors
    In Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security , 2021