Welcome to my page

Summary

I have diverse professional and research experience in industry and academy. I joined VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in 2019, where I work as a senior scientist focusing on interdisciplinary research in cybersecurity, AI/ML, and communications networks. At VTT, I lead research teams (currently 11 people) as principal investigator (PI), manage projects, and initiate (national, international) research project proposals. For the current project, I received 1.33 million Euro from Business Finland to conduct research on sustainable cybersecurity technologies. I have also helped companies expand their offerings in the identity sector and contributed to important projects in the critical infrastructures sector, e.g., manufacturing. I am an Adjunct Professor (Docent) at the University of Oulu, Finland, mainly meant to supervise PhD and M.Sc. students in their research. I have taught in two M.Sc. courses and given lectures in universities and to industry leaders internationally.

Contact for collaboration on my email: Ijaz (dot) Ahmad [at] vtt (dot) fi (no spaces)

Research Experience

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (Senior Scientist): May 2019 - Present

I am working as a senior scientist, at VTT, Finland. I lead research projects and tasks, contribute to different national and international (mainly EU-level) research projects, work on project proposals and applications, and supervise MSC. and PhD students. My research is related to communications networks (including 5G/6G) and their security, SDN, the applications of Machine Learning (ML)/Artificial Intelligence (AI) in wireless networks and their implications, such as security and resource efficiency challenges. My current project of Business Finland, that I lead as PI/PM, SUNSET-6G (1.31 MEuro), is about minimizing or optimizing resource consumption of cyber/network-security technologies. Currently, I co-supervise PhD students at Aalto University and the University of Oulu, Finland. I have also supervised M.Sc. thesis students at other universities, such as Turku University, Finland.

University of Oulu, Finland (Adj. Professor/Docent): Dec 2012- April 2019

I have received the title of Docent from the University of Oulu, on “Security of software defined and machine learning aided communications networks”. I supervise M.Sc. and PhD student in their research and theses work in different universities in Finland. I supervise and have supervised M.Sc. and PhD researchers at the University of Oulu, Aalto University, and Turku University in Finland. My first PhD student graduated in 2021.

Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu: Dec 2012- April 2019

I have worked on the application of the concepts of software defined networking (control-data planes split, abstractions) in mobile networks and its security implications. I have also worked on and still working on the security of wireless networks, e.g., 5G and 6G. My work, in many national and European ICT projects, was mainly related to wireless communications, as shown in Research Projects page. I also worked on project proposal preparations and funding applications. I have had active collaboration with Finnish and international academic/industrial partners during the research projects. The main outcome of my work had been publications, as shown on the publications page, google scholar and researchgate pages. The public deliverables of the projects can be found from the projects page. I have lead WPs, deliverables and participated in project management.

Research Visits

Macquarie University, Sydney Australia, Visiting Fellow, (Dec 2024 - Jan 2025): Research visit to work on resource-efficiency of cybersecurity technologies for 6G wireless networks.

University of Technology (UTS), Sydney Australia (Dec-2024): Research collaborations on sustainable network security technologies for 6G wireless networks.

Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), Barcelona Spain, Visiting Scientist, (May, 2023): A short research visit for research collaborations on Sustainable AI for wireless communications (6G).

Technical University of Vienna, Austria, Visiting Scientist (March-April 2019): Worked on the potential challenges that the application of AI/ML can bring into future wireless networks. AI/ML must be carefully applied to avoid inadvertent challenges, as highlighted in the article "Challenges of AI in wireless networks for IoT". The visit was hosted by Prof. Thilo sauter at TU Vienna, Austria.

Aalto University, Finland, Visiting Research Fellow (September-December 2018): Worked on the application of ML in wireless networks with Prof. Antti Yla-Jääski in the department of computer science at Aalto university, Espoo, Finland.

Research collaborations

People (main collaborators in scientific publications and research projects)

Prof. Mika Ylianttila (PhD Supvervisor, University of Oulu, Finland)
Prof. Andrei Gurtov (PhD Supvervisor, Linköping University Sweden)
Dr. Erkki Harjula (Centre for Wireless Communications, Oulu, Finland)
Dr. Shahriar Shahabuddin (Nokia, Oulu)
Prof. Thilo Sauter (Research visit host, TU Vienna, Austria)
Tanesh Kumar (University of Oulu, Finland)
Prof. Markku Juntti (University of Oulu, Finland)

Dr. Jyrki Huusko (VTT, Finland)
Dr. Jani Suomalainen (VTT, Finland)
Dr. Suneth Namal (Sri Lanka)
Jude Okwuibe (CWC, co-supervised his PhD)
Dr. Pawani Porambage (CWC, UoO, Finland)
Dr. Hassan Malik (Edge Hill University, UK)
Prof. Antti Ylä-Jääski (Research visit host, Aalto University)

Organisations (collaboration in international projects/funding applications and publications)

CWC, University of Oulu, Finland
Linköping University, Sweden
Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
WithSecure, Finland
Nokia, Finland
Satel, Finland

Aalto University, Finland
Ericsson, Turkey
Chemnitz University, Germany
Tallin University, Estonia
TU Vienna, Austria
CTTC, Barcelon, Spain

International Collaboration Map (publications)

Supervision

PhD Students

Ijaz Ahmad, University of Oulu, Finland (2023-Present)

Andrea Gentili, Aalto University, Finland (2022-present)

Jude Okwuibe, University of Oulu, Finland (graduated 2021)

Felipe Rodriguez, Aalto University Finland (2019-)

M.Sc. Thesis

Muzammal Hoque, Turku University, Finland (2024): Grades 5/5

Ann Varghese, Aalto University, Finland (2023): Grades 4/5

Ahnaf Ahmad, University of Oulu, Finland (2020): Grades 4/5

Figure: Testbed showing my work on developing SDN (OpenFlow)-based wireless network. Developed wireless SDN testbed having integrated cognitive radio network with the SDN control plane for efficient resource sharing. Results published in Journal articles, conference articles, during the SIGMONA project