Dr. Mohammad Zulkernine, PEng

Director, Queen's Centre for Security & Privacy
Professor and Canada Research Chair, School of Computing
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6

Dr. Mohammad Zulkernine is a Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Cyber-Physical System Security at the School of Computing of Queen’s University, Canada. Dr. Zulkernine also serves as the Founding Director of the Queen’s Centre for Security and Privacy. He is cross-appointed at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Queen’s and the Royal Military College of Canada. Dr. Zulkernine served as the Graduate Chair of the School of Computing from 2019 to 2020 and held a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Software Dependability from 2011 to 2021. He joined Queen’s in 2003 and spent his sabbatical at the University of Trento, Italy and Irdeto Canada. Dr. Zulkernine is a licensed professional engineer in Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Zulkernine leads the Queen’s Reliable Software Technology research group. His current research focuses on cyber-physical system security and building secure software systems for connected and autonomous vehicles and Internet of Things. Dr. Zulkernine has an extensive publication record in these domains. He has led 35 research projects supported by provincial and federal agencies, as well as industry partners. He has also actively collaborated in industry-supported multi-university projects, including several international projects such as European Union and Canada-Africa international projects.

Dr. Zulkernine has supervised over 100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He received the Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision award of Queen’s University and Distinguished Graduate Supervision Award of the School of Computing. His supervised students have achieved recognition with numerous conference best paper and distinguished thesis awards.

Dr. Zulkernine has held many leadership positions such as general chair and program chair of major international conferences and journal editorships. His diverse educational and professional background spans five countries: Bangladesh, Japan, Canada, Italy, and UAE. Dr. Zulkernine obtained his BSc from Bangladesh (BUET), MEng from Japan (Muroran), and PhD from Canada (Waterloo).

Major Awards & Honors

  • Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Cyber-Physical System Security, 2024.
  • Queen’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision, 2023.
  • Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Software Reliability and Security, 2016.
  • Distinguished Graduate Supervision Award, School of Computing, Queen’s University, 2013.
  • Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Software Dependability, 2011.
  • Awards to supervised PhD/MSc
    • Governor General’s Gold Medal (2021, PhD), IEEE Kingston Research Excellence (2007, MSc, honorable mention).
    • Distinguished Thesis Awards 2022 (PhD), 2021 (PhD), 2018 (PhD), 2013 (PhD), 2012 (PhD, honorable mention), 2012 (MSc), 2007 (MSc), 2006 (MSc).

Research​

Recent Journal & Conference Activities

  • Editorial Board Member: IEEE Transactions on Reliability (2020-22), Wiley Journal of Security and Privacy (2017-18), International Journal of Performability Engineering, (2020-)
  • Guest Editor: Journal of Systems and Software, Dependable Systems and Applications (2022); Software Quality Journal, High Assurance Systems Engineering, (2016); Journal of Systems and Software, Trustworthy Software Systems for the Digital Society (2014); Information and Software Technology Journal, Software Reliability and Security, (2012); Journal of Software, Software Engineering (2011)
  • Standing Committee Vice Chair: The IEEE Annual Conference on Computers, Software and Applications (COMPSAC), 2021-
  • General Chair: IEEE COMPSAC (Spain, 2020, 2021), IEEE DASC (USA, 2017; Canada, 2020, 2021), DependSys (Fiji, 2020)
  • Program Chair: CRISIS (Tunisia, 2022), NSysS (Bangladesh, 2022), DSA (China, 2021), A3S (Bulgaria, 2019, SIRI (Korea, 2011), COMPSAC (Turkey, 2011), HASE (USA, 2014), STPSA (USA, China, Finland, Korea, USA, 2006-10), NSysS (Bangladesh, 2017)
  • Symposium Chair: Security, Privacy & Trust (USA, 2016, 2019; Italy 2017; Japan 2018, USA 2019)
  • Workshops, Fast Abstract, Finnace, Panel  Chair: IEEE AVS (Japan, 2023), PRDC (Canada, 2013), ISSRE (USA, 2012), COMPSAC (Germany, 2011), PST (Canada, 2008)
  • Founding Workshop Organizer: STPSA (2006-), A3S (2019-21)

Supervision / Teaching

  • Thesis Hall of Fame
  • Post Doctoral Fellow: Dr. Ahmed Bataineh, Dr. Nilesh Chakraborty, Dr. Anika Anwar
  • PhD: Amin FakhereldineMohammed Anas (with Dr. Hassanein), Youssef Yamout (with Dr. Iqbal), Ayesha Babar, Mahdieh Safarzadeh, Stephen McKeon, Emilie Coote, Ephraim Govere, Nazmul Islam, Raha Abbas (with Dr. Ni)
  • MSc: Mackenzie Tummers, Nadia Rubaiyat (with Dr. Ni), Shaila Anuva (with Dr. Iqbal), Eve MacDonald (with Dr. Alacha), Abrar Kazi (with Dr. Hossain)
  • Past Supervised Theses: Available on QRST page
  • Teaching: 
    • Graduate:  Cyber-Physical System Security, Software Reliability and Security, Software Reliability
    • Undergraduate: Software Quality Assurance, Distributed Systems, and Information Technology Project

Countries Travelled / Lived

Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, ItalyJapan, Korea, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, USA (Including Puerto Rico And Hawaii), Vietnam.

Current & Past Sponsors