David Mohaisen

David Mohaisen

Professor, CS [ECE | MST]

My name is David Mohaisen1, and I am a Full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida with joint appointments in Computer Engineering and Modeling and Simulation. My research work is in the area of security and privacy, and I have been recently focusing on topics such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, software and networked systems, internet of things and wearables, and blockchains. My active work pursuits are nowadays centered around LLMs, their applications, and security.

I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, in 2012, where I was a fellow advised by Prof. Yongdae Kim. I spent several years before and after then in the research and development industry, working as a research engineer at ETRI and as a (senior) research scientist at Verisign Labs. At UCF, I direct the Security and Analytics Lab (SEAL), where I have been fortunate to mentor, work with, and learn from several hardworking graduate and undergraduate students.

Current Advisees

Cuong Tran, Ph.D. student (2025–)
Mandana Ghadamian, Ph.D. student (2025–)
Pelumi Ogunwale, Ph.D. student (2025–) ORC Fellow
Khalid Alquonus, Ph.D. student (2025–) SACM Scholar
Steffen Camarato, Ph.D. student (2025–) CSGrad4US Scholar
Mukhtar Jussain, Ph.D. student (2025–) Fulbright Scholar
James Love, B.Sc. student (2025–) SFS Scholar

Past Doctoral Advisees

  1. Jeff Spaulding (CS, 2018) → PM at NVIDIA
  2. Ashar Ahmad (CS, 2019) → VP Engineering, Rapticore
  3. Mo Abuhamad (CS, 2020) → Assistant Professor, Loyola University Chicago
  4. Hisham Alasmary (CS, 2020) → Assistant Professor, King Khalid University
  5. Rhongho Jang (CS, 2020) → Assistant Professor, Wayne State University
  6. Jeman Park (CS, 2020) → Research Scientist, Georgia Institute of Technology
  7. Jinchun Choi (CS, 2020) → Sr Researcher, ETRI
  8. Afsah Anwar (CS, 2021) → Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico
  9. Sultan Alshamrani (CS, 2021) → Assistant Professor, Saudi Electronic University
  10. Muhammad Saad (CS, 2021) → Sr Scientist, PayPal
  11. Ahmed Abusnaina (CS, 2022) → Research Scientist, Meta
  12. Ülkü Meteriz-Yıldıran (CS, 2022) → Research Scientist, Meta
  13. Abdulrahman Alabduljabbar (CS, 2022) → Assistant Professor and Chair, PSAU
  14. Hattan Althebeiti (ECE, 2023) → Assistant Professor, Tabuk University
  15. Mohammed Alkinoon (CS, 2024) → Lecturer, Old Dominion University
  16. Mohamed Alqadhi (CS, 2024) → Assistant Professor, Institute of Public Administration
  17. Ayodeji Adeniran (MST, 2024) → Architect, LeapXpert
  18. Soohyeon Choi (CS, 2025) → Research Scientist, Singapore Management University
  19. Aziz Alghamdi (ECE, 2025) → Assistant Professor, Jazan University
  20. Ahod Alghureid (CS, 2025) → Assistant Professor, PSAU
  21. Ali Alkinoon (CS, 2025) → Lecturer (Teaching Faculty), University of Central Florida
  22. Jie Li (CS, 2025) → Lecturer (Teaching Faculty), University of Central Florida
  23. Ilkin Isler, (CS, 2025) → Sr. Software Engineer, Universal Creative

Current Services

TPC: 35th USENIX Security Symposium (Security 2026)
TPC: 26th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2026)
TPC: 21st Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM ASIACCS 2026)
Co-Chair: 45th IEEE Int. Conf on Distributed Comp. Systems (ICDCS 2025)–Blockchain

Recent Services

Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing
General Co-Chair: IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS 2023)
TPC Co-Chair: International Conference on Networked Systems (Netys 2023)
TPC MEMBER: IEEE S&P, ACM CCS, ISOC NDSS, IEEE ICDCS, WWW, ICICS

Honors and Awards

  • 2025 Faculty Excellence in Mentoring Doctoral Students, University-Wide (UCF)
  • 2024 ACM Distinguished Speaker (2024–2027)
  • 2022 FCI Faculty Fellow, University of Central Florida
  • 2022 UCF Teaching Incentive Award for Excellence in Teaching
  • 2022 UCF Research Incentive Award for Excellence in Research
  • 2022 CECS Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award
  • Best Paper Award Nominee of IEEE VR 2022
  • Best Extended Abstract Award of IEEE DSN 2021
  • Best Student Paper Award Nominee of ACM ICS 2021
  • Distinguished TPC member of IEEE INFOCOM (2016-2021)
  • Best Paper Award, WISE 2024
  • Best Paper Award Nominee, IEEE VR 2022
  • IEEE TPDS Award for Editorial Excellence, 2022
  • Best Extended Abstract Award, IEEE DSN 2021
  • Best Student Paper Award Nominee, ACM ICS 2021
  • 2021 ACM Distinguished Speaker (2021–2024)
  • Best Paper Award of IEEE Systems Journal (2020)
  • Best Paper – Runner-up Award, IEEE DSC 2019
  • Best Paper Award, ACM DLoT 2018
  • Senior Member, ACM (2018)
  • Best Student Paper Award, IEEE ICDCS 2017
  • 2017 Visiting Faculty Research Award, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory
  • 2016 Summer Faculty Fellowship Award, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory
  • Senior Member, IEEE (2015)

Recent Updates

Gave a keynote at the Saudi Aramco Cyber Security Chair on AI Security (2025)
Will be on leave during 2023-2024.
I gave deliver a keynote on VR security at SNTA 2023, held in Orlando.

  1. Until 2020, I went by Aziz Mohaisen. ↩