Liz Izhikevich, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been named to the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the science category.
Izhikevich was recognized for her research into improving the performance and security of the internet — both on Earth and in space. Her work has unearthed previously unknown threats to many kinds of activity on the internet — related to privacy, data and commerce, as examples — and enabled researchers to identify performance glitches. Thanks to her efforts, Netflix is improving video delivery for over 1 million satellite broadband users.
At UCLA, Izhikevich leads the Security and Networking Lab, which works on building systems that collect data about the behaviors of networks — and their users and hackers — and leveraging quantitative analysis to find operational challenges and threats in near-real time. She is also a research scientist at the software security company Censys.
Prior to joining UCLA Samueli in July 2024, and during the last year of her doctoral studies in computer science at Stanford University, Izhikevich was a research fellow at Netflix, where she worked in collaboration with SpaceX’s Starlink to improve satellite-internet streaming quality. She received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from UC San Diego.
Izhikevich is among 46 Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees with UC connections. Previous recipients include UCLA assistant professors of computer science Aditya Grover and Saadia Gabriel, who were both named to the 2024 science list.
Published annually, the magazine’s list features innovators and visionaries across a broad range of disciplines, all under the age of 30.
