OMSCS Buzz S6E1: Maria Konte

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

On this episode, host Tanmay Shah chats with Maria Konte. She is a researcher at Georgia Tech whose work sits at the intersection of Internet security, network measurements, and online misinformation. She’s done incredible work uncovering how malicious actors exploit online ecosystems and how we can build safer, more trustworthy digital spaces.

Segments

0:00	Cold open
2:05	From Greece to Boston to Georgia Tech researcher/professor
5:10	Internship at Verisign Labs with Cybersecurity team as Ph.D. student
9:50	Early research focused on identifying abused networked and social media research
12:15	Course Navigator Lab building a product to help students choose classes
21:45	Discussion of RAG Architecture for Course Navigator (with AI Agents)
22:47	Teaching CS 6250: Computer Networks
26:07	Teaching CS 8803 O23: Modern Internet Research Methods
29:53	Creative thinking in research, "Is there an art to doing research?"
33:42	What sorts of research projects and topics are interesting to Maria?