News 

• 📢 Opening MSc projects for 2026 onwards: If you are interested in the MSc projects w.r.t. privacy-preserving federated learning, searchable encryption and its attack, secure blockchain oracle (TEE), please check some examples at CRYPTAI lab. 

• 📢 Call for PhD applicants: in the fields of post-quantum secure systems, applied cryptography, there are multiple PhD positions (3-year degree) opening. If you are with solid backgrounds in math, computer science or engineering, with appropriate English level (e.g., IELTS with 6.5 in general, writing at least 6.0), please feel free to reach out with your CV, transcripts and English certificate. CSC funded applicants (with international English test certificate, e.g., IELTS 6.5, or TOEFL 90) are also welcome.   

• 📢 Call for Post-doc positions: if you are interested in post-quantum secure systems, applied cryptography, and security for AI, please reach out with your CV. CSC funded post-doc and visiting researchers are also welcome.  

• 💡I was invited to server as TPC member for USENIX Security 2026. 

• 🎉Pleased and honored to receive the Distinguished Editor Award 2025 from PETs.  

• 🎉Pleased and honored to receive the Author Service Award 2025 from Springer Nature. 

• 💡I was invited to server as TPC member for ACM CCS 2025. 

• 💡I was invited to server as associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing. 

• 💡I was invited to server as TPC member for ESORICS 2025. 

• 🎉Pleased to receive the "Distinguished Reviewer Award" by one of the flagship computer security conferences ESORICS 2024, many thanks for the recognition of the security community. 

• 🎉It was pleased to be awarded as Rotterdam Knowledge Ambassador due to contributions of the development and collaborations for academic, industry and society in Rotterdam. 

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• 🏆As co-general chair, many thanks to ACM, steering committees of ASPLOS and EuroSys, George, Cristiano Giuffrida (VU), Lieven Eeckhout (Ghent University), all other chairs, and over 1100 international attendees for the first joint ACM ASPLOS+EuroSys 2025 in Rotterdam. 

• 🏆As co-general chair, it was a great pleasure to work with Toby Murray  (Uni. Melbourne), Tamara Rezk (INRIA) and Luca Mariot (Uni. Twente) to host IEEE CSF 2024 in Enschede. 

• 💡I started serving as steering committee for IEEE CSF. 

• 🏆As co-general chair, many thanks to George, David Evans (Uni. Virginia), Herbert Bos (VU), all chairs and over 250 attendees for IEEE EuroS&P 2023. 

• 🏆As co-general chair, many thanks to George, Gene Tsudik (Uni. California), Mauro Conti (Uni. Padua), all chairs and 350 attendees for ESORICS 2023. 

• 🏆As co-general chair, many thanks to Fengjun Li (Uni. Kansas), Zhiqiang Lin (Ohio State Uni.), Sokratis Katsikas (NTNU), all chairs and attendees for SecureComm 2022.  

• 🎉It is pleased and exciting to see that our colleagues and I are still at the top 2% citations across the world [2020 till now], Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. 

• 💡Cyberproof your manufacturing organisation. Get a headstart in securing your organisation from cyberthreats with hands-on advice share in a recent EIT Manufacturing whitepaper and webinar. More details can be seen: https://www.eitmanufacturing.eu/news-events/news/cyberproof-your-manufacturing-organisation/. 

• 🥁I worked with excellent researchers to setup an assistant professor network (APNet) across the whole Netherlands, involving all universities, education and research institution. If you don't know what is APNet, please feel free to take a look at here. We take pride in establishing the APNet, a fundamental association aimed at supporting Assistant Professors throughout the Netherlands in managing diversity, inclusiveness, networking, cross-disciplinary collaborations, research grant opportunities, promotion-related concerns, transparency, work-life balance, and other related matters. We give a warm welcome to all to join the APNet, as we unite to become stronger, together.

Introduction

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 significant 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 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 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 presented at our CRYPTAI Lab, with references on Google Scholar top cybersecurity publication venue (top ranking cybersecurity journals and conferences, e.g., IEEE TIFS, IEEE TDSC), core conference/journal ranking (top ranking A* cybersecurity conferences, e.g., USENIX Security, NDSS, ACM CCS) and CSRankings: Cybersecurity.   

Selected Academic activities 

Conference contributions: Since 2020, I've been invited to serve as general chairs for IEEE Euro S&P, IEEE CSF, ACM ASPLOS, ACM EuroSys and ACM CCS, ESORICS, and SecureComm, along with pc members for ACM CCS, USENIX Security, IEEE Euro S&P, PoPETs, and other conferences. I am also one of the steering committees for IEEE CSF. 

• IEEE CSF steering committee, general chair 2024, 

• ACM CCS organizing committee 2024/2026, PC member 2025,

• USENIX Security PC member 2024/2026, 

• IEEE Euro S&P general chair 2023, PC member 2024, 

• ESORICS  general chair 2023, PC member 2018 - 2022/2024/2025,  

• PoPETs editorial board member 2024/2025/2026,  

• SecureComm  general chair 2022,

• other PC members, session chairs, publicity chairs: ACNS, ACM ASIACCS, ARES, CODASPY, CANS, ISC, SecureComm, ACISP, ICICS, PST, ISPEC, Provsec, IEEE TrustCom, IEEE TPS, etc.  

Associate editor: Since 2020 I've been invited to serve several international information security journals as associate editor. 

• IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (2025 - current),  

• The Computer Journal (2021 - current), 

• Journal of Information Security and Applications (2022 - current), 

• IEEE Open Journal of the Communication Society (2023 - current), 

• IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (2021 - current), 

• EURASIP Journal on Information Security (2021 - current)

• IEEE Systems Journal (2020-2024), 

• Guest editor for Journal of Computer Security, Sensors.  

ISO Standardization:  I am currently the NEN cybersecurity and privacy committee; i was a member at ISO/IEC SC27 Work Group 2 (BSI UK). 

Education/teaching training certificate: I was granted the Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (UK) and participated into University Teaching Qualification (The Netherlands). 

Panel committee for funding/grant review: UK Research and Innovation, Dutch Research Council personal grant NWO Veni, NWO KIC, SWISS NSF. 

PhD defense committee and panel: TU Delft, IMDEA, Technical Uni. Denmark, Uni. Padua, Uni. Southampton  

Invited keynotes: One Conference, ProvSec, ACNS, Japan Advanced Instituted of Science and Technology, AIT, University of Padua, CyberSciTech.....please feel free to contact for the presentation slides. 

Peer review: ACM CCS, Eurocrypt, Asiacrypt, ACM AsiaCCS, IEEE TIFS, IEEE TCC, IEEE TC, IEEE TAI, IEEE TDSC, ACM TPS, IEEE IoT, ACM CSUR, ESORICS, PoPETs, IEEE TSC, IEEE TMC, IEEE Euro S&P, JISA, etc.   

Supervision, publications and research  

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

Teaching

MSc: 

• Cybersecurity Data Analytics 

• Privacy-enhancing Technology 

• Hacking Lab 

• Security and Privacy 

• AI and Security 

• Multimedia Security and Digital Forensic

• Distributed Systems

• Cryptography and Data Security

Undergraduate:

• Algebra and Cryptography 

• Algorithms and Data Structure

• Introduction to Computer Programming

• Advance Programming and Software Design

Admin  

• Cyber Security specialisation (MSc) programme coordinator (2021-2023) 

• Academic Integrity Officer

• Final Year Student Mentor

• Board of Examiner 

• Studies program evaluation panel

• Internal and external PhD defense committee (e.g., IMDEA, TU Delft, DTU, Uni Padua)

Other useful links

• AISYLAB

• Cyber Analytics lab

• CryptoBLK

• Computer Security & Cryptography Google Scholar top publication venue list

• ACM ASPLOS 2025

• ACM EuroSys 2025

• IEEE CSF 2024

• IEEE Euro S&P 2023

• ESORICS 2023

• SecureComm 2022