Associate professor in cybersecurity

Bio

I am an associate professor in cybersecurity and lead the CRYPTAI Lab. I earned my PhD in Computer Science from CityU Hong Kong. I held several academic positions, including as an information security research intern at A*STAR, a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University, and an academic visitor at universities, e.g., UCL and Northwest University. I was an assistant professor in secure systems at the University of Surrey.

Since 2020, I’ve gained recognition within the cybersecurity and ICT communities. I’ve secured European funding for several high-impact projects related to cybersecurity and AI, serving as PI and accumulating over 2.5 million euros in funding. My research has led to real-world impact through collaborations, e.g., IBM, Fujitsu, NEC, BIBA, ATOS, with use cases, e.g., smart satellite (ASSURED, Greece), smart transportation (IRIS, Spain), and cross-border biometric data exchange (TENSOR, Portugal).

My research, which applies information security tools to tackle cybersecurity challenges, has earned over 6k+ citations (top 2% citation scientist). My works have been featured in top-tier conferences, e.g., USENIX Security, NDSS, CVPR, SIGMETRICS, ESORICS, Asiacrypt, and many others, as well as in leading international journals, e.g., IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics. I’ve also delivered information security keynotes to international conferences and received awards, e.g., distinguished reviewer, best research paper.

A sought-after expert, I’ve been invited to serve on PC member, as General Chair, and as a Steering Committee member for renowned security and privacy conferences, e.g., USENIX Security, ACM CCS, IEEE Euro S&P, ESORICS, IEEE CSF, PoPETs, as well as session chairs, keynotes for information security topics. I also serve as an Associate Editor for prominent journals, e.g., The Computer Journal, IEEE Open Journal of the Communication Society, IEEE Systems Journal, Journal of Information Security and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, IEEE Transactions on artificial intelligence.

I’ve contributed to ISO standards, as a member of the BSI (when he was in UK) and as part of the NEN committee 381027 “Cybersecurity & Privacy” in the Netherlands. I’ve also been invited to serve on research funding review committees and panels for NWO (Dutch research council) and other international funding bodies. As one of the founding members, I contributed to the development and settlement of APNet (a national network supporting assistant professors across the Netherlands).

I am a Fellow of The Higher Education Academy, UK, and hold UTQ certificate, the Netherlands. Since 2016, I’ve involved in designing, teaching, and evaluating MSc, Bachelor’s courses, as well as supervising MSc, PhD theses.

It is pleased to evidently witness that the cybersecurity group and myself have contributed excellence, over recent years, in teaching BSc/MSc courses and PhD supervision/graduation (e.g., 4+ BSc group projects, 20+ MSc projects, at least 4 PhDs, 1 graduated, 2 on the way of graduation), securing promising research funding - contributing to supports on admin and department wide travel funding, publishing top-tier conferences and journals (e.g., USENIX Security, NDSS, IEEE TDSC), promoting cybersecurity community as chairs via renowned conferences (e.g., ACM ASPLOS/EuroSys, IEEE EuroSP, ESORICS, IEEE CSF), boosting local economic and expanding local cybersecurity and ICT collaborations via conferences’ attendees, being TPC and associate editors for international cybersecurity conferences (e.g., USENIX Security, ACM CCS) and journals (e.g., IEEE TDSC, IEEE TAI), putting forward use cases/pilots to various European countries via projects (e.g., TANGO, ASSURED). The cybersecurity group’s performance is phenomenal. I am very proud of closely working with my team members (all the PhDs and post-docs) and excellent colleagues (e.g., Alex, Lilika and George).

Research Interests

Data protection, privacy-preserving federated learning, attacks on AI \& secure systems, blockchain R\&D. Please take a look at the research outputs, with references on Google Scholar top publication venues, core conference/journal ranking and CSRankings: Cybersecurity.

Research Projects

  1. REWIRE: REWiring the ComposItional Security VeRification and AssurancE of Systems of Systems Lifecycle (No. 101070627) and spans on the period 2022-2025, Primary Investigator. REWIRE envisions a holistic framework for continuous security assessment of open-source and open-specification hardware and software for IoT devices and the development of cybersecurity certification in accordance with the requirements and guidelines of recent EU Cybersecurity Act.
  2. TANGO: Digital Technologies ActiNg as a Gatekeeper to information and data flOws (No. 101070052, 2022-2025), Primary Investigator. TANGO will establish a stronger cross-sector data sharing, in a citizen-centric, secure and trustworthy manner, by developing innovative solutions while addressing environmental degradation and climate change challenges.
  3. IRIS: H2020-SU-DS-2020, (no. 101021727, 36 months, 2021-2024), Primary Investigator. IRIS aims to establish the first dedicated online training and cyber exercises to prepare CERTs/CSIRTs to collaboratively protect critical infrastructures and systems against cross-border AI and IoT threats. Pilot demonstrators will be conducted in Helsinki, Tallinn, and Barcelona.
  4. ASSURED H2020-SU-ICT-2018-2020, (no. 952697, 36 months, 2020-2023), Primary Investigator. ASSURED introduces an innovative, formally verified runtime assurance framework for securing CPS supply chains: by leveraging edge computing ecosystems, a universal distributed solution is developed for the transformation of CPSoS into distributed safety-critical CPSoS solutions, hosting multiple mixed-criticality applications. Completed.
  5. CUREX funded by the European Commission, H2020-SC1-FA-DTS-2018-1/SU-TDS-02-2018 (36 months, 2018-2021), Co-Investigator. Completed.
  6. SPEAR funded by the European Commission, H2020-DS-SC7-2017/DS-07-2017-RIA (36 months, 2018-2021), Co-Investigator. Completed.
  7. SECONDO funded by the European Commission, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2018/ENG, (48 months, 2018-2022), Co-Investigator. Completed.
  8. FutureTPM funded by the European Commission, H2020-DS-2016-2017/DS-06-2017-RIA, (36 months, 2017-2020), Co-Investigator. Completed.

Selected Academic Activities

Conference contributions:

  • IEEE CSF steering committee and general chair 2024,

  • ACM CCS publicity chair 2024, PC member 2025,

  • USENIX Security PC member 2024, 2026,

  • IEEE EuroS&P general chair 2023 and PC member 2024,

  • ESORICS general chair 2023 and PC member 2019-2022, 2024, 2025

  • PoPETs editorial board member 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026

  • SecureComm general chair 2022,

  • other PC members, session chairs, publicity chairs: ACNS, ACM ASIACCS, ARES, CANS, ISC, SecureComm, etc.

Associate editor:

NEN cybersecurity and privacy committee (2021-now), ISO/IEC SC27 Work Group 2 (UK, 2018-2020).

Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (UK).

Supervision

We have a group of Bachelor, MSc, PhD and Post-doc researchers working in several cybersecurity topics, please take a look at our CRYPTAI Lab.