First Generation, Arab American

Education

PhD, Purdue University, Technology, West Lafyette, IN, 2009
MSc, Purude University, Technology, West Lafayette, IN, 2005
BSc, Purdue University, Telecom & Networking, West Lafayette, IN, 2002
ASc, Purdue University, Computer Technology, West Lafayette, IN, 2001
IB Diploma, American International School of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 1999

Awards & Honors

2023: TEDx Baton Rouge Invited Speaker, 2023, Baton Rouge, LA
2023: Top 3 paper in Student Category, DFRWS USA, 2023, Johns Hopkins University
2023: Top 3 paper in Professional Category, DFRWS USA, 2023, Johns Hopkins University
2023: Received the Medal of the Order of Thor, Military Cyber Professionals Association (MCPA)
2022: Elected into the prestegious Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE)
2022: Nominated to the Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. Visions Award by students and colleagues
2021: Connecticut Civilian Medal of Merit, received the 4th ever CT Civilian Medal of Merit from the Adjunct General, Major General Francis Evon, for training the CT National Guard in Cybersecurity, and receiving grants for supporting the military’s mission through project IRONCLAD
2021: Nominated for membership to the prestigious Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) organization for my technical and academic contributions to cyber forensics
2021: Best Paper Award for the paper Forensic Artifact Finder (ForensicAF): An Approach & Tool for Leveraging Crowd-Sourced Curated Forensic Artifacts, ARES, WSDF
2021: Promoted to Full Professor
2019: Awarded European Alliance for Innovation Fellow, comprising 0.1% of the members
2018: Our Student Trevor Haigh Won Best Paper Award, ICDF2C 2018 for the paper titled If I Had a Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis and A Trojan Proof-of-Concept
2018: Nominated by the university and accepted into the prestigious CT Magazine 40 under 40
2017: Our mentored student hacking team received Second place at CyberSEED, University of Connecticut
2017: Our mentored student hacking team received Third place in the northeast qualifiers of the Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC) at the University of Pennsylvania
2017: Received letter of appreciation for activities and training performed for the United Nations in Jordan and Egypt
2016: Received letter of appreciation from the CT Center for Digital Investigation. Our lab was able to create a forensic tool to recover data hidden by a Vault application on Android. Recovered files included 18 additional videos that will be prosecutable in the LE jurisdiction, as well as 38 videos that may be prosecutable in other jurisdictions. All together, 42 new victims were revealed in these recovered videos. The research and tool allowed the demonstration of the full scope of this suspect’s actions and will have a direct impact on the outcome of the case
2016: Three of my students received Google sponsored scholarships to attend DFRWS 2016 and present their work
2016: Third place in national Black-t-shirt digital forensics competition.The team was composed of Chris Meffert (Graduate student), Joseph Ricci (Undergraduate student) and myself. Links to results https://cyberforensicschallenge.com/challenges/annual-challenge/2016-annual-challenge/. 1,012 individuals registered for the 2016 challenge. In our category, the academic category, there were 184 teams. Registrants came from 42 different countries and 45 different states. We competed against 184 university teams worldwide
2016: Finalist in Cybersecurity Excellence Awards for cyber security educator of the year award in the USA - nominated by my students: http://cybersecurity-excellence-awards.com/
2016: Granted Tenure and promotion to Associate Professor
2016: Merit Award
2015: Elder Family Chair
2015: UPE - Inducted into Upsilon Pi Epsilon - The International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines
2015: Received Merit Increase @ University of New Haven
2015: Nominated for Faculty Excellence in Research / Creative Activity Award
2014: Best paper award for the paper: File Detection On Network Traffic Using Approximate Matching at the International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime, New Haven, CT
2014: Awarded the prestigious competitive designation of UNH Research Scholar (Includes course release + yearly research grant for three years) for the Artifact Genome Project
2014: Received a certificate of appreciation from the Department of Justice, FBI and Infraguard
2014: Nominated by the Department Chair: University of New Haven Research/Creative Activities Award
2012: Zayed University - Awarded Exemplary Faculty Award
2012: Zayed University - Nominated for University-Wide outstanding faculty award
2011: Zayed University - Best Undergraduate Capstone Award for Jena2i (e-learning system for judges and lawyers in the U.A.E.), presented by H.E. Sheikh Nahyan Bin Zayed, Former Minister of Higher Education
2012: Nominated by the Dean: Zayed University Outstanding Faculty Award
2011: A token of appreciation for presenting at a scientific forum related to digital evidence and cyber criminal investigations. Ministry of Interior, UAE
2010: Best paper award for the paper: Defining a standard for reporting digital evidence items in computer forensic tools ICST Best Paper Award at the 2nd International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime
2009: Recognition award for service and lecturing at the Open Source Day event. Zayed University - College of IT
2008: Purdue University - Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship
2003-2009: Teaching Assistantship Scholarship, Purdue University
2006: Nominated for the 'Outstanding Innovations in 'Helping Students Learn', Purdue University
2005: Nominated for 'The Chancellor's List' 'The highest academic honor to which students can aspire
2002: Bachelor of Science with distinction, Purdue University, Dec 14, 2002
2002: Recognized by the National Society of Collegiate Scholars
2002: United States Achievement Academy, Computer Science Awards Winner, Spring 2002
2001: Associate of Science with distinction, Purdue University, Dec 15 2001