Zhiyuan (Thomas) Tan - researcher in CYBER-SECURITY

Dr Zhiyuan Tan is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing at the Edinburgh Napier University (ENU). He holds a BEng degree (2005) with high distinction from the North-eastern University, China, and an MEng degree (2008) from the Beijing University of Technology, China. He was awarded a PhD degree in Computer Systems by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia in 2014.

Prior to joining ENU in 2016, Dr Tan held different research positions at three research-intensive universities, respectively. He was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Cybersecurity at the University of Twente (UT), the Netherlands from 2014 to 2016; a Research Associate at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia in 2014; and a Senior Research Assistant at La Trobe University, Australia in 2013.

Dr Tan has a strong research background, and his current research interests include cybersecurity, machine learning, data analytics, virtualisation and cyber-physical system. Dr Tan has received AUD 27,800 funding from Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and UTS for his research on autonomous network intrusion detection, as well as £6,987 funding from ENU for his research on securing future 5G health care systems. Over the past nine years, he also has participated in other network security research projects funded by CSIRO, Minster of Education (Oman), and ITEA2-/CATRENE.

These projects have contributed highly efficient solutions for 1) detecting, classifying and defending malicious activity and intrusion in an entire network as well as systems providing critical services, 2) furthering the cutting edge in practical security monitoring, and 3) developing secure data and service architectures. Based on the outcomes of these projects, Dr Tan has published over 44 quality scholarly articles. His most recent research achievements have been published in highly-cited IEEE Transactions and Elsevier journals as well as premier international conferences.

His research contribution on cybersecurity is internationally recognised. According to Google Scholar, he has an H-Index of 13 and his research articles have received over 830 citations since 2011. Moreover, he has earned various research awards, including a National Research Award 2017 from the Research Council of the Sultanate of Oman, a Best Paper Award, and a Kaspersky Lab’s Annual Student Cyber Security Conference Finalist Award, over the past years.

Besides, Dr Tan has played various chair roles in international workshops and conferences, and has served international journals as an editorial board member or as an associate editor. Dr Tan has organised Special Issues for international journals. Dr Tan has also been invited to serve as a technical program committee member of major international conferences and a reviewer for prestigious journals.

In addition, Dr Tan has been involved in supervising Research Master and PhD students since he accomplished his PhD thesis in 2013 and has been entitled to independently supervise research student projects since 2016. Over the past 5 years, Dr Tan has mentored and supervised 9 PhD students, and his research students have achieved productive research outcomes, including 12 journal and 10 conference publications. By far, 6 PhD students have successfully accomplished their study under his mentoring.