Research Team

VP, Chief Knowledge Officer

Omer Tene

Omer Tene is Vice President and Chief Knowledge Officer at the International Association of Privacy Professionals. He is an Affiliate Scholar at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and a Senior Fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum.

Research Director, DPO, General Counsel

Rita Heimes

Rita Heimes is Research Director at the International Association of Privacy Professionals, where she also serves as the in-house Data Protection Officer. Rita is an attorney and academic with many years of experience in the fields of privacy, information security and intellectual property law. In her role as Research Director at the IAPP, Rita helps to promote the privacy profession through empirical and qualitative research on privacy functions globally as well as through outreach to academic institutions developing the next generation of privacy and security professionals. As the DPO, Rita facilitates and oversees the IAPP’s data protection policies and practices.

Prior to joining the IAPP, Rita was a law professor and academic dean at the University of Maine School of Law, where she directed the Center for Law + Innovation and developed the nation’s first Privacy Pathways program and one of the first intellectual property clinics. She also spent many years in private practice with law firms in Seattle, Boulder and Portland (Maine). Rita remains an active scholar, and still coordinates and teaches in the Information Privacy Summer Institute at Maine Law.

Senior Westin Research Fellow

Müge Fazlioglu

Muge Fazlioglu completed her Ph.D. in Law and Social Science at the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University, Bloomington. She was a graduate research fellow at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research and at the Center for Law, Ethics and Applied Research, and served as a teaching assistant for the course Legal Research and Writing.

Her main research interests are in privacy, data protection, communications law, risk management and the socio-cultural dimensions of information technology use. She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary and comparative research into the individual-level factors that affect data protection and privacy attitudes and behaviors. Her doctoral dissertation examines the risk-based approach to privacy and data protection and the role of information sensitivity within risk management in the European Union and the United States.

Her research has been published in International Data Privacy Law and presented at various conferences, including the International Communication Association and the Amsterdam Privacy Conference. She also holds an LL.M. in European Law from Stockholm University in Sweden and an LL.B. from Marmara University in her home country, Turkey.

Westin Fellows

Mitchell Noordyke

Mitchell Noordyke graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School. While in school he externed for a federal magistrate judge and worked as a law clerk. Active at Minnesota Law, Mitchell was lead managing editor for the Minnesota Law Review and president of the Business Law Association. He focused his studies on technology and privacy law.

Mitchell’s interest in privacy is rooted in his love for data. He developed an interest in statistics while he was an undergraduate student at Minnesota, where he became fascinated by the power of data to persuade, and wary of its ability to deceive. His interest in data and statistics led him to pursue and complete a Master of Science in Business Analytics — also from the University of Minnesota — after which he was an analytics intern for a medical device company. Prior to law school Mitchell worked as a supply chain professional and a technology consultant.

A native Minnesotan, Mitchell embraces winter and enjoys the cold and snow. He is also a technology enthusiast and tries to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and product releases. Outside of work, Mitchell balances out his wife’s culinary expertise with a flair for dish washing. He also attempts to keep his codingchops sharp by organizing a volunteer analytics group.

Past Westin Fellows