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ABOUT

ME

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In a nutshell

Ahmed is a Teaching Associate Professor in the "Department of Informatics and Networked Systems" and the Associate Director for Education and Outreach in the Laboratory of Education and Research on Security Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS) at the University of Pittsburgh. He currently teaches cyber-focused undergraduate and graduate courses. He is passionate about enhancing and improving cybersecurity education and is actively developing hands-on cybersecurity content.

Ahmed received funding to offer experiential hands-on experiences for faculty and students at the collegiate level, research assistant positions, build a cyber range for students to experience effective cybersecurity exercises, and promote diversity in cybersecurity. So far, the Pitt Cyber Range has been used by more than 350 Pitt students and more than 120 non-Pitt individuals in multiple courses and outreach activities. Ahmed reviews CAE and PoS applications for the CAE Community, contributes to cybersecurity workforce development and outreach efforts, and find ways to enable individuals from underrepresented groups navigate their path in cybersecurity. He served as a panelist for the National Science Foundation (NSF) multiple times, and was an Executive Committee Member at the Virginia Cyber Range (Fall 2018 - Spring 2020).

 

Ahmed's research interests are in the area of security and privacy. He conducted research on e-voting security for the Egyptian parliamentary elections, which involved designing a protocol that allows for voter privacy while remaining verifiable. Ahmed is currently researching secure health information exchange by providing healthcare organizations the capability of mutual authentication and patient authentication and ensuring the privacy, integrity, and auditability of exchanged medical information. Ahmed's future research directions include: e-voting in the era of cyber threats, Red and Blue Teams automation, securing IoT and SOHO devices, developing criteria for usable and effective interactive cybersecurity content.

​

Before jointing the University of Pittsburgh, Ahmed was an Assistant Professor (Academic General Faculty) in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia since August 2016. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky in 2016. He also holds two M.Sc. degrees in Computer Science, one from the University of Kentucky in 2014 and one from Egypt in 2009.

Degrees

Degrees

  • Ph.D. in Computer Science - University of Kentucky - 2016

  • M.Sc. in Computer Science - University of Kentucky - 2014

  • Certificate in College Teaching and Learning - University of Kentucky - 2014

  • M.Sc. in Computer Science - Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport, Egypt - 2009

  • B.Sc. in Computer Science - October 6 University, Egypt - 2004

Titles

Titles and Roles

  • Teaching Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2023 - Current)

  • Associate Director for Education and Outreach, LERSAIS (Fall 2021 - Current)

  • Teaching Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2020 - Spring 2023)

  • Assistant Professor, Academic General Faculty, University of Virginia (Fall 2016 - Spring 2020)

  • Lecturer, University of Kentucky (Spring 2013 and Spring 2016)

  • Teaching Assistant, University of Kentucky (Spring 2011 – Spring 2014)

  • Teaching Assistant, Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport (Fall 2009 – Spring 2010)

  • Teaching Assistant, Modern University for Technology and Information (Fall 2007 – Spring 2008)

  • Teaching Assistant, October 6 University (Fall 2004 - Spring 2007)

Publications

Publications

  • Ahmed Ibrahim and Vitaly Ford (2023). Recommendations for Developing More Usable and Effective Hands-on Cybersecurity Education Materials Based on Critical Evaluation Criteria. Cybersecurity Pedagogy and Practice Journal2(2) pp 68-81. http://cppj.info/2023-2/n2/CPPJv2n2p68.html

  • Ahmed Ibrahim, Chelsea Gunn, Leona Mitchell, and Sherif Khattab, “Actionable and Measurable Items to Increase Cybersecurity Diversity”, Cybersecurity Skills Journal: Diversifying the Cybersecurity Workforce, Vol.1, pp. 12-27, April 2023.

  • [BoF] Ahmed Ibrahim, Chelsea Gunn, Leona Mitchell, and Sherif Khattab, “Rethinking the Bottleneck in Diversifying the Cybersecurity Talent Pool: What Actions can We Take and How can We Measure Success?”, Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2022), March 3-5, 2022, Pages 1194, Providence, RI, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3478432.3499197

  • Monique Mezher**, Nathan Hellmuth*, and Ahmed Ibrahim, “Secure Health Information Exchange (S-HIE) Protocol with Reduced Round-Trip Count”, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI 2021),  August 9-12, 2021, Victoria, BC, Canada. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/ICHI52183.2021.00051

  • Ahmed Ibrahim and Vitaly Ford, "Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective", Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice: Vol. 2021: No. 1, Article 4. Available at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jcerp/vol2021/iss1/4

  • Nasim Al Goni**, Sherif Saad, and Ahmed Ibrahim, “A P2P Optimistic Fair Exchange (OFE) Scheme For Personal Health Records Using Blockchain Technology”, Proceedings of the International Conference on Wireless, Intelligent and Distributed Environment for COMmunication (WIDECOM 2020),  August 26-27, 2020, Ryerson University, Canada. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44372-6_1

  • Simranjit Bhatia* and Ahmed Ibrahim, “Understanding Security Risks When Exchanging Medical Records Using IHE”, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, ITNG '20, April 5-8, 2020, Las Vegas, USA.

  • Zeadally Sherali, Siddiqui Farhan, Baig Zubair and Ahmed Ibrahim (2019), "Smart healthcare: Challenges and potential solutions using internet of things (IoT) and big data analytics", PSU Research Review, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1108/PRR-08-2019-0027

  • Monique Mezher* and Ahmed Ibrahim, “Introducing Practical SHA-1 Collisions to the Classroom”, Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE '19, February 27-March 2, 2019, Minneapolis, MN, USA. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287446

  • Santosh Chandrasekhar, Ahmed Ibrahim, and Mukesh Singhal, “A Novel Access Control Protocol using Proxy Signatures for Cloud-based Health Information Exchange”. Computers & Security, pp. 73-88, 2017. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2017.02.008

  • Baban Mahmood, Ahmed Ibrahim, and D. Manivannan, “SAriadne: A Secure Source Routing Protocol to Prevent Hidden-Channel Attacks”, IEEE 12th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), October 17-19, 2016. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/WiMOB.2016.7763267

  • Ahmed Ibrahim and Mukesh Singhal, “A Secure Framework for Medical Information Exchange (MI-X) Between Healthcare Providers”, IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), October 4-7, 2016. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/ICHI.2016.33

  • Ahmed Ibrahim and Mukesh Singhal, “A Simultaneous Key Generation Technique for Health Information Exchange (HIE) Based On Existing Patients’ Credentials”, 1st IEEE International Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering Technologies (CHASE), June 27-29, 2016.

  • Ahmed Ibrahim, Baban Mahmood, and Mukesh Singhal, “A Secure Framework for Sharing Electronic Health Records over Clouds”, in Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health (SeGAH), May 11-13, 2016.

  • Ahmed Ibrahim and Mukesh Singhal, “A new authentication protocol for an Authentication-as-a- Service (AaaS) Cloud using Pedersen Commitment Scheme”, in Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics and Computer Systems (CIICS), March 13-15, 2016.

  • Ahmed Ibrahim and Mukesh Singhal, “An Abstract Architecture Design for Medical Information Exchange”, in Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics and Computer Systems (CIICS), March 13-15, 2016.

  • Mohamed Aborizka and Ahmed Shedeed. “Secure E-voting Scheme Through Polling Stations”, Innovation and Knowledge Management in Twin Track Economies – in Proceedings of the 11th International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA) Conference, pp. 250-256, January 4-5, 2009.

  • Mohamed Aborizka, Ahmed Shedeed, and Sherif Saad. “E-voting Scheme Over the Internet”, Managing Information in the Digital Economy: Issues & Solutions – in Proceedings of the 6th International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA) Conference, pp. 503-507, June 19-21, 2006.

​

* an undergraduate student at the time of research
** a graduate student at the time of research

Talks and Workshops

Talks and Workshops

  • Developing More Usable and Effective Hands-on Cybersecurity Education Materials
       NICE Conference & Expo (June 6, 2024)

  • Marketing Strategies for GenCyber Programs
       GenCyber PMO Meeting (April 18, 2024)

  • Let's Get Crackin' Workshop (Password Cracking)
       BSidesNoVA (September 8, 2023)
       BSidesTampa (March 31, 2023)
       BSidesNoVA (September 9, 2022)
       BSidesKY (May 26, 2022)
       RedChairPGH (March 21, 2022)

  • How to Build and Hack an Exploitable WiFi Environment Workshop
       CCSCNE 2021 (April 2021)
       SIGCSE 2021 (March 2021)   [
    LINK]  [LINK]
       Dakota State University Mini Grant Workshop (January 13-14, 2021)  [
    LINK]
       National Cyber Summit 2020 (June 2020)  [LINK]   Postponed to June 2021 due to COVID-19

       SIGCSE 2020 (March 2020)   [LINK]   Canceled due to COVID-19
       Virginia Cybersecurity Education Conference (August 2019)   [LINK]

  • Hacking WEP and WPA2 Access Points Workshop
       RedChairPGH (April 2021)   [
    LINK]
       Florida A&M University (February 2021)
       Dakota State University Mini Grant Workshop (January 16-17, 2021)  [
    LINK]
       CAPWIC 2020 (March 2020)   [LINK]   Canceled due to COVID-19
       University of Windsor (January 2020)

  • Introduction to Linux Terminal and the Internet (Hands-on) Workshop
       Community Engagement Center (CEC) Hill District (May 14, 2022)

  • Knock-Knock Who's There Workshop (Hands-on Network Mapping)
       Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference (TRETC) (January 15, 2024) [LINK]
       Community Engagement Center (CEC) Hill District (May 21, 2022)

  • What is Cybersecurity?
       Reach Cyber Charter High School (February 2, 2023)

  • Cyber Up your High School Classroom
      Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference (TRETC) (January 15, 2024) [LINK]

  • Shall we take Health Information Exchange security seriously?
       University of Windsor (January 2020)   [LINK]

  • SSL/TLS Session Hijacking and Intercepting Secure Communication
       BSidesSWVA 2018 (November 2018)   [LINK]
       Women's Society of Cyberjutsu (October 2017)   [LINK]

Professional Activities

  • Associate Director for Education and Outreach, Laboratory for Education and Research on Security Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS) (Fall 2021 - current).

  • Point of Contact for the NSA/DHS Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) and Cyber Defense Research (CAE-R) at the University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2021 - current).

  • Capstone Coordinator, Department of Informatics and Networked Systems, School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2020 - Current).

  • University Senate Member, University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2024 - current)

  • Academic Council Member, School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh (Fall 2023 - current).

  • CAE and PoS Reviewer, CAE Community (Fall 2023 - current).

  • Director, “GenCyber@Pitt” Teachers Preparedness Program (2023/2024) – PI, $149K NSA/NSF Grant.

  • Director, “GenCyber@Pitt” Teacher Program (2022/2023) – PI, $148K NSA/NSF Grant.

  • Director, Hands-on WiFi Hacking Workshops (January 13-14, 2021 and January 16-17, 2021), Sponsored by Dakota State University Cybersecurity Workshop Mini Grant through NSF Award #1730105.

  • Director, GenCyber “CyberWars @ UVA” Teacher Camp (June 2018) – PI, $100K NSA/NSF Grant.

  • Led the NSA/DHS Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) designation effort in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia (Spring 2017 – Fall 2018).

  • Co-led the NSA/DHS Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Research (CAE-R) designation effort in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia (Fall 2018 – Spring 2019).

  • Panelist for the National Science Foundation (NSF) SaTC-EDU and SFS Panels (2018, 2019, and 2021).

  • Executive Committee Member of the Virginia Cyber Range (Fall 2018 – Spring 2020).

  • Member of the National CyberWatch Center's Curriculum Standards Panel for the Cybersecurity Foundation Series (AY 2017-2018).

  • Member of the Organizing Committee and reviewer for the ITNG 9 , 10 , and 11 International Symposium on Cybersecurity, 2018 through 2020.

  • Reviewer for the Cybersecurity Pedagogy and Practice Journal, 2024.

  • Reviewer for the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE '19, February 27 - March 2, 2019, Minneapolis, MN, USA.

  • Reviewer for the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE '21, March 13-20, 2021, Virtual, USA

  • Reviewer for the 25th Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Northeast Region (CCSCNE) , CCSCNE '21, April 16-17, 2021, Virtual, USA

  • Reviewer for the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Skills Journal (CSJ) (2020).

  • Member of the IEEE, ACM, ACM-SIGCSE, NICE, WiCyS, and Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu.

Professional Activities
News
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