Current Students

• • Pradip Kunwar (PhD, Fall 2023 - Present)

  • Shovan Roy (PhD, Spring 2025  - Present)

  • Jestus Sahay (PhD, Fall 2025 - Present)

  • Seif Ikbareih (Expected MS Fall 2025)

  • Andrew Wheeler (Expected MS Spring 2026)

  • Samuel Howard (Expected MS Fall 2026)

  • Om Solanki (Expected MS Summer 2026)

  • Katherine Swinea (Expected MS Fall 2026)

  • Ryan Thornton (Expected MS Fall 2026)

  • Sebjin Kennedy (Undergraduate)

  • Harrison Simpson (Undergraduate)

PhDs and MSs Awarded

1. Kshitiz Aryal (PhD Summer 2025)

Dissertation: Novel Adversarial Evasion Attacks against Windows Malware Detectors

First Employer: University of Nebraska - Omaha 

2. Lopamudra Praharaj (PhD Summer 2025)

Dissertation: Robust AI-assisted Network Anomaly Detection for Secure Cooperative Smart Farming

First Employer: University of North Carolina - Pembroke 

3. Tanjila Mawla (PhD Spring 2025)

Dissertation: Activity-Centric Access Control for Smart and Connected Systems

First Employer: University of Wisconsin -  Platteville 

4. Ahsan Ayub (PhD Spring 2023)

Dissertation: A Data-Driven Approach for Early Detection of Cryptographic Windows Ransomware

First Employer: Vanderbilt University Medical Center 

5. Ereny Younan (MS Fall 2024)

Project: AI-assisted Cybersecurity Gamified Experience

First Employer: Tennessee State Department

6. Quincy Card (MS Spring 2024)

Thesis: Explainability-Enhanced Malware Classification and Targeted Misclassification

First Employer: National Security Agency

7. Elena Becker (MS Fall 2023)

Thesis: Enhancing Edge IoT Digital Forensics with Machine Learning Based Cyber Attacks Classification and Reconstruction 

First Employer: Department of Defense

8. Daniel Simpson (MS Fall 2023)

Project: Development and Dissemination of Adaptable AI-Assisted Cybersecurity Educational Modules

First Employer: Tennessee Valley Authority

9. Austin M Brown (MS Summer 2022)

Thesis: Automated Machine Learning for Malware Detection with Deep Learning

First Employer: Department of Defense

10. Philip A Brown (MS Summer 2022)

Thesis: Online Malware Classification with System-Wide System Calls in the Cloud 

First Employer: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

11. Jeffrey C Kimmel (MS Spring 2022)

Thesis: Analyzing and Explaining Machine Learning based Online Malware Detection in Cloud 

First Employer: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

12. Sina Sontowski (MS Spring 2022)

Thesis: Exploration and Detection of Denial-of-Service Attacks on Cyber-Physical Systems

First Employer: Los Alamos National Laboratory 

13. Mary A Adkisson (MS Spring 2022)

Thesis: Detection and Classification of Polyglot Files Using Machine Learning

First Employer: Sandia National Laboratory

14. Andrew D McDole (MS Spring 2021)

Thesis: Analyzing Online Behavioral Malware Detection in Cloud using Convolutional Neural Networks

First Employer: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Past Associated Students (both undergraduates and graduates)

15. Connor Allen

16. Grey Haney

17. Charan Kumar Akiri

18. Marlana Hatcher

19. Blaine Swieder

20. Yoshinori Agari

21. Andrew Wheeler (BS Spring 24)

22. Eli Parker (BS Fall 2023)

23. Kelsey Rainey

24. Arvin Sanchez  (BS Fall 2022)

25. Jessica E Baugh (BS Spring 2023)

26. Hayden Keller

27. Glen Cathey (BS Summer 2022)

28. Thanh Pham Kim (BS Spring 2021)

29. Jacob Strikler (BS Spring 2021)

30. Marlana Hatcher

31. Pallavi Zambare