Collin MacDonald

Recent news

• Aug 2026 Continuing at Google Cloud as a Student Researcher

  Staying on with the PIE-RoT team through the fall as a Student Researcher, continuing work on Mjolnir and Root-of-Trust security.

• Jul 2026 Featured in Google's 2026 International Intern Day post

  Google Careers featured me in its 2026 International Intern Day post, highlighting my summer with the Google Cloud Root-of-Trust team.

• Jun 2026 AttestLens appears at ACM WiSec 2026

  Our large-scale measurement of Play Integrity adoption in Android apps, AttestLens, was published at the ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks.

• May 2026 Started at Google Cloud (PIE-RoT)

  Interning with Google Cloud’s Root-of-Trust team in Sunnyvale this summer.

• Apr 2026 Awarded VSGC Graduate Research Fellowship for 2026–27

  The Virginia Space Grant Consortium renewed my Graduate Research Fellowship for Action-Aware Attestation on Android.

• Oct 2025 AccNimbus published at HASP 2025

  AccNimbus, our work on scalable proofs of data possession for cloud storage, appeared at the Workshop on Hardware and Architectural Support for Security and Privacy (co-located with MICRO).

Education

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  College of William & Mary

  PhD in Computer Science

  August 2022 – Expected May 2027

  Advised by Dr. Stephen Herwig

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  College of William & Mary

  M.S. in Computer Science

  August 2022 – May 2024

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  George Mason University

  B.S. in Computer Science (Honors College)

  August 2018 – August 2022

Experience

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  Google

  Software Engineering Intern and Student Researcher — Google Cloud (PIE-RoT Team)

  May 2026 – Present · Sunnyvale, CA

  • Led design and development of Mjolnir, an agentic pipeline that finds and verifies vulnerabilities in Root-of-Trust hardware and firmware, released open source through the CHIPS Alliance.
  • Integrated Mjolnir into its first adopting project, Caliptra DPE, for continuous scanning of production code.
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  William & Mary

  Graduate Research Assistant — Extending Trust in Computing Lab

  November 2024 – Present · Williamsburg, VA

  • Research on systems security for mobile and cloud, including Android app attestation (AttestLens, WiSec '26) and cloud storage integrity and post-compromise security (AccNimbus, HASP '25; Akeso, PETS '25).
  • Advised by Dr. Stephen Herwig; supported by a VSGC Graduate Research Fellowship.
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  Google

  Software Engineering Intern — Google Cloud (OpenTitan Team)

  May 2025 – August 2025 · Sunnyvale, CA

  • Researched and developed on-host fuzz testing for OpenTitan's ROM_EXT firmware (RISC-V based).
  • Explored how LLMs could be used to automate the creation of fuzz test targets and mocks in large codebases.
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  Google

  Software Engineering Intern — Fitbit (Sleep Labs Team)

  August 2024 – November 2024 · Mountain View, CA

  • Developed and launched multiple features worldwide for the Fitbit Android application, translating Figma designs into production code.
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  Industrial Light & Magic

  Core Pipeline Graduate Intern

  May 2024 – August 2024 · San Francisco, CA

  • Architected and built an updated Analytics system across ILM's five global sites, handling millions of events per day.
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  Google

  Software Engineering Intern — YouTube (Live Interactivity Team)

  May 2023 – August 2023 · Remote

  • Developed and launched an experimental feature worldwide for the YouTube iOS application.
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  William & Mary

  Lead Graduate Teaching Assistant & Lab Instructor

  August 2022 – May 2024 · Williamsburg, VA

  • Designed and taught labs for Computational Problem Solving (2023–24); TA for Operating Systems and Systems Programming (2022–23).
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  Google

  Software Engineering Intern — YouTube (Live Interactivity Team)

  January 2022 – May 2022 · Remote

  • Developed and fully launched a new feature for the YouTube iOS application and completed the same feature on Android.
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  Noblis, Inc.

  Software Developer

  June 2019 – December 2021 · Reston, VA

  • Architected a serverless AWS web application for the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).
  • Supported full-stack development for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
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  George Mason University

  Undergraduate Teaching Assistant

  January 2019 – May 2019 · Fairfax, VA

Open source

Publications

Honors & awards

• 2025 – 2027 Graduate Research Fellowship — Virginia Space Grant Consortium

  Projects: Action-Aware Attestation on Android (2026–27) and Towards a Safer Android for All (2025–26).

• Fall 2023 – Spring 2026 National Cyber League — Collegiate CTF

  Best individual: 6th nationally (Spring 2026). Best team: 5th nationally as Captain (Fall 2025). Also participated in CyberForge 2025 and TribeCTF 2025.