Dr. Ahmed Imteaj
Assistant Professor
Southern Illinois University
Director, SPEED Lab
Hello! My name is Ahmed Imteaj, and currently, I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. I am the director of the Security, Privacy and IntElligence for Edge Devices Lab (SPEED Lab), where we are conducting research on developing efficient and robust algorithms, and defense mechanism for multi-agent-based systems that can be effectively applied in various real-life engineering applications. During my first two years at SIUC, I secured two federal grants (NSF CRII and DHS CINA), developed two new courses on Generative AI and received the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Florida International University in 2022 with the prestigious FIU Real Triumph Graduate Award, where I received his M.Sc. degree with recognition of the Outstanding Master’s Degree Graduate Award. Prior to that, I received B.Sc. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Chittagong University Engineering and Technology. My research passions encompass Federated Learning, Visual-Language Models (VLMs), Large-Language Models (LLMs), Cybersecurity, Interdependent Networks, and Artificial Intelligence. Our contributions have significantly impacted privacy-centric distributed machine learning and the internet-of-things, reflected in numerous top-tier conference presentations and peer-reviewed journal publications. Besides, my efforts have received multiple accolades, such as the "2022 Outstanding Student Life Award: Graduate Scholar of the Year", the "2021 Best Graduate Student in Research Award" from KFSCIS at FIU, Winner at FIU GSAW Scholarly Forum, and a Best Paper Award from the 2019 IEEE CSCI’19 conference. I've also authored the book "Foundations of Blockchain: Theory and Applications" and have over 70 published papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Contact: imteaj [at] cs [dot] siu [dot] edu
SPEED Lab | Google Scholar | ORCID | LinkedIn | ResearchGate
Announcements: I have fully-funded Ph.D. positions available! Strongly motivated candidates having experience in LLMs, Federated Learning for edge devices, or Cybersecurity are encouraged to apply.
General research topics include:Â
Federated Learning
Large Vision-Language Models (VLMs)
Large-Language Models (LLMs)
Multi-Modality
Privacy and Cybersecurity
ML and Computer Vision
Internet of Things (IoT)
Recent Highlights
[9/24] Listed in Stanford’s Top 2% Scientists list for single year (2023) Research Impact.Â
[8/24] Serves as a Panelist at Let’s Talk Research (Panel discussion for early career SIU faculty for preparing a successful NSF proposal).
🏆 [8/24] Received NSF CDER grant for participation in a training program on Distributed Computing.
[7/24] Serves on the NASA MOREP proposal review panel.
[6/24] Serves on the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Review panel.
🏆 [5/24] My course proposal on Generative AI: Computing and Ethical Perspectives has been accepted for the University Honors Program and will be offered in Spring 2025.
[5/24-8/24] Conducting Generative AI (newly developed course for CS @SIU) in Summer'24.
🏆 [4/24] Received the NSF CRII Grant. Thanks to NSF!Â
🏆 [4/24] Received the 2023 Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award from SIU!
🏆 [3/24] Received the DHS CINA Grant. Thanks to DHS!
[4/24] Papers accepted at IEEE ICDCS'24!
[3/24] Paper accepted at INFOCOM'24!
[3/24] Paper accepted at ICC'24!
[3/24] 4 papers are accepted at COMPSAC'24!
[1/24] One paper is published in IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence! [Link]
[09/23] One paper is accepted at IEEE CNS'23, Â one of the premier conference on computer and network security!
[09/23] SPEED Lab MS student Saika Zaman has won the Second Prize at the at the ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) during the 2023 CMD-IT/ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference for her research on Federated Learning. Congratulations, Saika!
[09/23] SPEED Lab PhD Student, Md Zarif Hossain has been awarded with prestigious NSF Student Travel Grant to attend 2023 ACM MobiHoc!Â
[09/23] Our paper on Federated Learning and Blockchain is accepted at IEEE Internet of Things Journal (Impact Factor: 10.238)!
[07/23] Our research paper is accepted at IEEE DSC'23!
[07/23] Served on the Program Committee of AAAI'24!
[06/23] Our paper, Assessing Wearable Human Activity Recognition Systems Against Data Poisoning Attacks in Differentially-Private Federated Learning, has been accepted to IEEE SmartComp'23! SPEED Lab PhD student Md. Zarif Hossain presented the paper at Nashville, TN.
[05/23] Dr. Imteaj serves on the Technical Program Committee of the 2023 IEEE World AI IoT Congress.
[2/23] Our latest research in collaboration with RMU is accepted at IEEE Consumer Electronics Journal! [Impact Factor: 4.135]Â
[01/23] Our latest research entitled “A Novel Scalable Reconfiguration Model for the Post disaster Network Connectivity of Resilient Power Distribution Systems” in collaboration with FIU and University of Nottingham is published at Sensors Journal! [Impact Factor: 3.847] [Link]
[01/23] I am teaching Artificial Intelligence in spring'23 at SIUC!
[1/23] Joined as a Guest Editor of Privacy and Security in Federated Learning, A special issue of Journal of Surveillance, Security and Safety. [Link]
[11/22] Our latest research on Federated Learning has been accepted at the AI to Accelerate Science and Engineering, Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI'23)!
[10/22] Our latest research on Label Flipping Data Poisoning Attack Against Wearable Human Activity Recognition System with a collaboration with Robert Morris University is accepted at IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI 2022)!
[09/22] My recent research work entitled “Federated Learning for Resource-Constrained IoT Devices: Panoramas and State of the Art” in collaboration with researchers from FIU, Deep Learning Research at Samba Nova Systems, IBM TJ Watson, and Binghamton University is published in Federated and Transfer Learning Book!
[08/222] I am teaching Machine Learning & Soft Computing course in the SoC at SIUC during the Fall'22 semester!
[08/22] Big News!! Joined as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at SIUC!
[08/22] Whoa!! Recognized as the "2022 Real Triumphs Graduate" in the FIU Summer-2022 Commencement Ceremony! [Link] [FIU KFSCIS Coverage] [FIU CEC Coverage]
[07/22] Received the GPSC Travel Grant for our accepted paper at the CSCE'22 conference!
🏆 [04/22] Received the “2022 Outstanding Student Life Award: the Graduate Scholar of the Year Award" from the Division of Academic and Student Affairs at FIU.
🏆 [12/21] I had the great honor to receive “2021 Best Graduate Student Research Award" at the FIU Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences. [Link][Link]
🏆 [12/21] Received the “Outstanding Master's Degree Graduate” award from Florida International University. This award has been given to only one master's graduate among all the engineering and computing departments. [Link] [Link]
Our collaborative work with Deep Learning Research at Samba Nova Systems, IBM TJ Watson, and Binghamton University, entitled “A Survey on Federated Learning for Resource-Constrained IoT Devices” is accepted in IEEE Internet of Things Journal (Impact factor: 10.207)! (Download Link) (IEEE Link)Â
We were invited to the FIU Book Authors Recognition Ceremony for our recently published book entitled, "Foundations of Blockchain: Theory and Applications" which is published by Springer and now available on Amazon! [Link] [Link]Â
Our paper in collaboration with Texas A&M University at Galveston and Lehigh University, entitled, "FedResilience: A Federated Learning Application to Improve Resilience of Resource-Constrained Critical Infrastructures" is published in the Special Issue on “Security of Cyber-Physical Systems” at Electronics Journal! (Impact Factor: 2.397) [Link]
[12/21] Received the IHCI-2021 Travel Scholarship Award for his latest research paper, "Exploiting Federated Learning Technique to Recognize Human Activities in Resource-constrained Environment" at IHCI'21, Kent, Ohio! [Link]
[12/21] Conducted a presentation session as a Session Chair at ICMLA'21 conference!
Our research paper on Distributed Network Optimization for Secure Operation of Interdependent Complex Networks funded by ARFL is accepted in The 2021 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI'21) (Acceptance rate: 16%). Dr. Imteaj presented the paper.
Conducted a webinar on, "Distributed Machine Learning for Large-Scale Critical Infrastructure Resilience: Tale of Energy Systems" as an invited speaker in Commemoration of IEEE PES Day.
Joined the Editorial Board of Data Science for Communications as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Communications and Networks Journal.Â
Recent News
with PhD Advisor Prof. M. Hadi Amini.
Highly prestigious FIU 2022 Real Triumphs Graduate Award! [Link]
Each commencement ceremony, FIU honors select individuals for their extraordinary academic, professional, and personal achievements as they graduate from FIU. I was honored to receive that award.
Outstanding Scholars Award: Graduate Scholar of the Year, Florida International University!
This university-wide award recognizes a student who has demonstrated outstanding leadership through academic achievement and research.Â
“2021 Best Graduate Student in Research Award” from the School of Computing and Information Sciences at FIU
The award is granted to the top Ph.D. student researcher in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at FIU based on their research impact.
Best Paper Award of “Annual Conf. on Computational Science & Computational Intelligence” (CSCI’19)
We developed a distributed IoT sensing mechanism and analyzed how such an approach can be beneficial in leveraging an efficient federated learning algorithm. The impact of this research goes beyond computer science and can be applied to various real-world applications from healthcare to energy and transportation infrastructures. Read more..
Outstanding Master’s Degree Graduate Award from Florida International University!
The university-wide outstanding master's degree graduate award is given in the induction ceremony to only one masters graduate for his/her exemplary academic, research, and service activities towards the department, school, and communities.
With FIU CS Interim Director Prof. Jason Liu!
