Mary Culnan
Dr. Mary J. Culnan is Professor Emeritus at Bentley University. She also serves as a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for IT and the Global Economy (CITGE) at the Kogod School of
Business, American University.
Mary has testified before Congress, the Massachusetts Senate, and other government agencies
on a range of privacy issues. In 1993, she served on a White House Task Force on Presidential
Correspondence. From 1997-98, she served as a Commissioner on the President’s Commission
on Critical Infrastructure Protection. In 2000 she was a member of the FTC’s Advisory
Committee on Access and Security. Since 2001, Mary has been a member of the Government
Accountability Office’s Executive Committee on Information Management and Technology
(ECIMT). Business Week’s e-biz Web site profiled Mary as a “Mover & Shaker” in 1999
Mary’s primary research interest is governance of privacy and security; her paper on public
policy approaches to promoting accountability for privacy was one of six papers selected for
inclusion in FPF’s 2011 Privacy Papers for Policy Makers.. She has also conducted research
on how organizations can gain value from social media. Mary’s work has been published in a
range of academic journals as well as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall
Street Journal. She is the author of the 1999 Georgetown Internet Privacy Policy Survey, which
the Federal Trade Commission used to make recommendations to Congress, and the 2006
Bentley-Watchfire Survey of Online Privacy Practices in Higher Education. She also co-authored
FPF’s 2010 “icon” research report related to online behavioral advertising. Details about her
publications is available here.
Mary was employed for seven years as a systems analyst by the Burroughs Corporation prior to
earning her Ph.D. in management from UCLA. Before joining the faculty at Bentley in fall 2000,
she held faculty positions at the University of Virginia, University of California, Berkeley, the
American University and Georgetown University.
