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Nitesh Saxena - Professor, Computer Science; Associate Director, Global Cyber Research Institute; Dean's Research Fellow 2022-23

Texas A&M University College of Engineering

6 out of 7 PhD graduates in past 4 years are in faculty positions

Posted on October 4, 2025 by nsaxena

6 out of 7 of our PhD graduates from the past 4 years have been recruited as faculty members, making the positive difference to the world of academia. Not to say that the 7th one is not a special one too — he is holding the cybersecurity fort at the US government. Truly exceptional pool of students I have been fortunate to work with. 

Those six:

  1. Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad (@TAMU, Fall 2019 to Summer 2025; thesis title “New Frontiers in Authentication and Side Channels in Emerging Platforms: 2FA Attacks, Sensor Exploits and AR/VR Security”; now an Assistant Professor of EECS at Ohio University)
  2. Mashari Alatawi (@TAMU, Spring 2019 to Spring 2024; thesis title “On the Security of End-to-End Encrypted Messaging and Calling Applications”; now an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the College of Computer and Information Sciences at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia).
  3. Zengrui Liu (@TAMU, Fall 2018 – Fall 2023; thesis title “An Exposition of User Privacy on the Web: Fingerprinting and Tracking”, now an Assistant Professor at College of Information Engineering at the Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, China)
  4. Cagri Arisoy (since Fall 2018 – Fall 2023; thesis title “A Neurophysiological Exploration Of Human Behavior In User-Centered Cybersecurity”, now an Assistant Professor at College Engineering Computer Engineering department at the Yozgat Bozok University. Turkey).
  5. Shalini Saini (@TAMU;  Fall 2019 – Summer 2023; thesis title “Privacy and Security of Emerging Technologies in Changing Healthcare Paradigms”; now an Assistant Professor of the Computer Science and Engineering Technology department at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore)
  6. Anuradha Mandal (@UAB; Fall 2019 – Summer 2022; thesis title “On the Privacy Leakage via Neural Devices”; now a Visiting Assistant Professor to tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Computer Science department at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)

That one (outlier?):

  1. Payton Walker (@TAMU; Fall 2019 – Summer 2022; thesis title “An Exposition of Speech-based Threats in the Face of Emerging Technology”; now a Researcher and Project Leaer at the MITRE, recruited as part of the National Security Accelerator Program (NSAP))

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Recent News

  • Paper accepted to IJCNLP-AACL October 25, 2025
  • TAMU SPIES Lab Wins CCS 2025 Distinguished Paper Award! October 20, 2025
  • 6 out of 7 PhD graduates in past 4 years are in faculty positions October 4, 2025
  • Dr. Saxena joins the Editorial Board of ACM AILET September 29, 2025
  • Paper accepted to eCrime 2025 September 9, 2025
  • Paper accepted to IEEE S&P (Magazine) August 24, 2025
  • Another recent SPIES graduate to take up faculty position August 21, 2025
  • Paper accepted to CSCML 2025 August 13, 2025
  • SPIES graduate to start as Assistant Professor July 22, 2025
  • Paper accepted to ACM CCS 2025 July 2, 2025
  • Paper accepted to ICME 2025 June 24, 2025
  • SPIES Lab’s Browser Fingerprinting Work in the News June 23, 2025
  • Journal paper accepted to IEEE TIFS June 19, 2025
  • SPIES Lab’s Browser Fingerprinting Work Features in News June 18, 2025
  • Paper Accepted to USENIX Security 2025 June 6, 2025
  • 2 Papers Accepted to PST 2025 June 6, 2025
  • The 17th SPIES PhD Graduate – Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad June 2, 2025
  • AI Spies News — BPSniff (IEEE S&P 2025) Paper News Story May 12, 2025
  • Launching the AI Spies News Channel May 12, 2025
  • Paper accepted to WiSec 2025 May 11, 2025

Contact Info

Nitesh Saxena

PETR 238

435 Nagle Street

College Station, Tx 77843-3112
email: nsaxena[at]tamu.edu (best way to reach me)

RSS SPIES Lab, Computer Science and Engineering

  • Paper accepted to IJCNLP-AACL 2025
  • TAMU SPIES Lab Wins CCS 2025 Distinguished Paper Award!
  • Paper accepted to eCrime 2025
  • Paper accepted to IEEE S&P (Magazine)
  • Another recent SPIES graduate to take up faculty position
  • Paper accepted to CSCML 2025
  • SPIES graduate to start as Assistant Professor
  • Paper accepted to ACM CCS 2025
  • News: Security and Accessibility Gaps in Web Authentication for Blind and Visually Impaired Users
  • Paper accepted to ICME 2025

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