Major Awards & Grants
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UTEP Student Choice High Impact and Innovative Teaching (HIIT) Award (2025)
UTEP’s highest distinction for teaching excellence and the only award decided entirely by students, recognizing exceptional impact and innovation in education. -
UTEP Pioneering Researcher (2025)
Recognized for contributions to trustworthy and adversary-resilient AI and cybersecurity research. -
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Title: Adaptive Zero-Trust Cybersecurity Architecture with AI-Driven Real-Time Threat Monitoring for U.S. Nuclear Plants
Role: Principal Investigator (PI)
Amount: $500,000
Duration: August 1, 2025 – July 31, 2028 -
National Science Foundation (NSF) – CISE CRII (SaTC)
Title: A Framework to Defend Against Sockpuppet Connection Requests in Social Networks
Role: Sole Principal Investigator
Amount: $157,888
Duration: October 31, 2024 – March 31, 2027 -
Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC) / NIST
Title: RAPID: A Testbed for Experimenting with Industrial IoT and Cybersecurity Integration in Small Manufacturing
Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Amount: $99,102
Duration: June 1, 2022 – November 30, 2022 -
Conference Travel Awards
AAAI ICWSM (2018), FIU GPSC (2018), FIU SCIS (2018), ACM WebSci SIGWEB (2017).
Recognitions & Nominations
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Rising Star Faculty Award – Nomination (2024)
Nominated for outstanding early-career research and academic leadership. -
University-Level Early Career Faculty Excellence Award – Nomination (2022, 2024)
Southern Illinois University (SIU) nomination recognizing excellence in research, teaching, and service. -
Scholar of the Year – Nomination (2020)
PennWest nomination for outstanding scholarly contributions.
Additional Honors
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SCIS Best Graduate Student in Research (2018)
Florida International University, School of Computing and Information Sciences. -
Dissertation Year Fellowship (2018)
Florida International University. -
Dean’s Merit List Award (2013–2014)
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). -
Best Paper Award – ICEEICT (2014)
Awarded for conference paper presentation. -
President’s Rover Scout Award (2009–2014)
National recognition for leadership, service, and community engagement. -
Bangladesh Government Merit Scholarship (2006, 2008)
Awarded for ranking within the top 1% among approximately two million students nationwide.
