I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the School of Computing at Southern Illinois University. I am the founding director of the Security and Privacy Enhanced Machine Learning Lab (SUPREME Lab), where my group develops privacy-enhanced secure systems with machine learning applications. I am also a member of the NSF IUCRC Center for Intelligent, Distributed, Embedded Applications and Systems (IDEAS) and Center for Research and Education in AI and Cybersecurity (CARE-AI-C). My current research interests include security and privacy with applications in online and geosocial networks, machine learning, wireless networks, distributed systems, and mobile applications. Widely cited in books and research papers, my research has been funded by leading federal agencies like National Science Foundation (NSF), Cyber Florida, Florida Center for Cybersecurity, etc. I am the recipient of the prestigious NSF CISE CRII award by the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) under the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program. I am also the recipient of the 2022 Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC) award from NIST. I am the nominee of the PennWest's Scholar of the Year in 2020 and SIU's University-Level Early Career Faculty Excellence Award in 2022 and 2024. Before joining SIU, I was a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Pennsylvania Western University (PennWest), where I was the founder and director of the Privacy-Enhanced Security Lab (PENSLab) and was leading their Cybersecurity program.

I have authored over sixty (60) peer-reviewed publications in reputed journals and top-tier conferences including ACM TSC, Nature Scientific Reports, ANS Transactions, ASONAM, ACM SAC, ICWSM, ACM CHI, ACM WebSci, IEEE DSC, and my research has received media attention from many news outlets including prominent national and international outlets. NBC 6 has featured my research as a sweeps prime-time story and Sage Research Methods based on UK has made my research methods available to academic libraries for subscription or purchase aimed at helping students and early career researchers. I am the recipient of several research travel grants and have been invited by Facebook Research to their HQ. My paper has won best paper award on multiple occasions. I am an active member of IEEE and lifetime member of ACM. I have served/am serving on the editorial boards and review panels for journals such as ACM Transactions on Service Computing (TSC), IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems (TCSS), Springer Nature, KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS), Applied Sciences Journal, Frontiers in Human Dynamics, Big Data and Cognitive Computing (BDCC), and Nature Scientific Reports. Additionally, I am actively involved in program committees of prominent conferences including ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Advanced Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC), ACM Asian Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), IEEE Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC), EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Systems (SecureComm), IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Cyber Security (CICS), IEEE International Conference on Networking Systems and Security (NSysS), and ACL Workshops on Abusive Language Online and Online Abuse and Harms (WOAH). I have mentored over forty students, including K-12 high school teachers, undergraduate students, and graduate students in several programs, such as Science without Borders’s Summer Research Program, NSF’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), and NSF’s Research Experience for Teachers (RET).