Alexander Gamero-Garrido, Ph.D.

Research Interests

• Computer Networks

• Public Policy

• Online Privacy

• Internet Measurement

Education

• PhD in Computer Science, University of California San Diego

• MS in Technology and Policy, MIT

• BE in Electronics Engineering, U. Simón Bolívar — Venezuela

  • Lund University — Sweden (thesis)

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Research Summary

I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at UC Davis, where I direct the IMPly Lab (Internet Measurement, Privacy & Policy). My research sits at the intersection of computer networks and public policy, with an emphasis on online privacy. I combine large-scale Internet measurements with social science methods to produce empirical evidence on contested questions in technology policy.​ That work starts from a foundational question about the measurement infrastructure itself.

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Widely-used measurement infrastructure was built by and for the Global North's core networks, and treating it as a neutral vantage point produces systematic error. My research asks what the network looks like when we correct for that error: which countries are exposed to state surveillance, which companies track users across the web and from where, and who has adequate broadband connectivity. The unifying scientific problem is that standard vantage points and inference techniques misrepresent the network in ways that fall unevenly on specific countries and populations.

My research spans three areas: (i) mapping the macroscopic structure of the Internet to reveal infrastructure-level surveillance capabilities and connectivity gaps; (ii) auditing commercial platforms and tracking ecosystems to reveal what data is collected, where it flows, and whether regulatory frameworks hold in practice; and (iii) characterizing Internet connectivity at the institutions and communities that current measurement infrastructure overlooks.​ My work has received the IMC Best Paper Award, the Caspar Bowden PET Award Runner-Up, and the PAM Best Dataset Paper Award, among other accolades. I am a CAMPOS Faculty Scholar, jointly designated by UC Davis and the California State Legislature. Total awarded funding stands at $1,394,000.

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Prior to UC Davis, I was a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Northeastern University. I received my PhD in Computer Science from UC San Diego in 2021.

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​Updates​

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• Jun. '26. It was a pleasure to travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, to attend Sachin's defense in person as a Ph.D. committee member. Congrats, Dr. Singh!

• Mar. '26. WIRED interviewed me about Amazon's privacy practices. Full article here.

• Dec. '25. My lab was selected to represent computer science's junior faculty in the UC Davis College of Engineering's Engineering Progress Magazine.

• Nov. '25. Our study "Where in the World Are My Trackers? Mapping Web Tracking Flow Across Diverse Geographic Regions" was published at ACM IMC 2025. Congrats to Sachin! (He's on the faculty job market; hire him!).

• Sep. '25. I was a podcast guest in Episode 4 of Internet Changemakers by the Internet Society, discussing how Internet measurement reveals outages, latency, and surveillance across global networks.

• Apr. '25. Our article "Empirically Measuring Data Localization in the EU" was accepted to appear in PETS 2025! 

• ​Mar. '25.  I’ve been named one of five ISOC PULSE global Mentors. Announcement from UC Davis College of Engineering. A student from my lab, Nishant Acharya, also received the PULSE fellowship (even more competitive). We are the only lab to have both a mentor and a fellow awarded this year.

• Jul. '24. We received the Caspar Bowden PET Award Runner-Up!

• Jun. '24. Our proposal to study the availability, reliability and performance of public networks, including public libraries, was funded by the NSF!

• Apr. '24. I gave a talk hosted by UC Davis CAMPOS. More details about our data localization method in this 2023 pre-print.

• Apr. '24. I will serve on the Program Committee of PETS '25.

• Apr. '24. Our PNAS Nexus paper was featured on the frontpage of UC Davis News.

• Jan. '24. Our paper was accepted to appear in PNAS Nexus! The study, "Network Topology Facilitates Internet Traffic Control in Autocracies", is a trans-Atlantic and cross-disciplinary collaboration between a team of political scientists (led by Eda Keremoglu, the study's first author) and a group of computer scientists led by me.

• Oct. '23. We received the Best Paper Award at IMC!

• Aug. '23. I have been awarded the CAMPOS Faculty Scholar Award jointly by UC Davis and the California State Assembly (Legislature).​