Director and Principal Investigator

Dr. Sajedul Talukder

Assistant Professor

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Affiliation: Institute for Applied AI Innovation (AAII)

NSF IUCRC Center for Intelligent, Distributed, Embedded Applications and Systems (IDEAS)

Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI)

Research Interests: Security and Privacy, Trustworthy and Adversarial AI, Online Abuse and Deception, Online Social Networks, Cyber-Physical Systems, AI-Enabled Cybersecurity for Nuclear Systems and Critical Infrastructure

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Ph.D. Students

Sai Mani Teja Puppala

Ph.D. Student

Graduated: May 2026

School of Computing
Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Current Position: Assistant Professor, New Mexico Tech

MS: University of Illinois. Previous Position: Data Scientist, Google

Research Interests: Federated Learning, Agentic AI and Multi-Agent Systems, Applied AI for Safety-Critical Systems

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Ismail Hossain

Ph.D. Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

BS: Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology (CUET). Previous Position: Sr. Software Engineer, Samsung R&D Institute Bangladesh

Research Interests: Large Language Models (LLMs), Multimodal Learning, Efficient Deep-Learning Architectures, Online Social Networks

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Md Jahangir Alam

Ph.D. Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

BS: Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET). Previous Position: Software Engineer, REVE Systems

Research Interests: AI/ML Applications in Social Network Security, Privacy, Natural Language Processing (NLP)

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Tanzim Ahad

Ph.D. Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

BS: Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology (RUET). Previous Position: Software Engineer, Huawei

Research Interests: Agentic AI and Multi-Agent Systems, Adversarial Machine Learning and LLM Safety

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James Newson

Ph.D. Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

BS: The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Federated Learning, Machine Learning, NLP, Algorithms and Complexity

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Braulio Banuelos

Ph.D. Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

BS: The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, AI Security, Machine Learning

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M.S. Students

Marco Alanis

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Federated Learning, Distributed Systems

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Natalia Mesta Valenzuela

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Federated Learning, Distributed Systems

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Alaa M. Alotaibi

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

School of Computing
Southern Illinois University

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Federated Learning, Distributed Systems

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Saika Zaman

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

School of Computing
Southern Illinois University

BS: Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology (CUET)

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Federated Learning, Distributed Systems

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Ebrahim Maghsoudlou

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

School of Computing
Southern Illinois University

Research Interests: IoT, IIoT, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Distributed Systems

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Ajit Shukla

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

BS: Tribhuvan University

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Machine Learning, Online Social Networks, Distributed Systems, Abuse Detection, AI for Social Good

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Pragna Katasani

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

School of Computing
Southern Illinois University

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Federated Learning, Distributed Systems

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Fakhrul Alam

M.S. Student

Current Status: Alumni

School of Computing
Southern Illinois University

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Federated Learning, Distributed Systems

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Undergraduate Students

Stephen Schulte

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Machine Learning, Online Social Networks, Distributed Systems, Abuse Detection, AI for Social Good

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Sebastian Lucero-Chavez

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Machine Learning, Online Social Networks, Distributed Systems, Abuse Detection, AI for Social Good

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Francisco Roman

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Machine Learning, Online Social Networks, Distributed Systems, Abuse Detection, AI for Social Good

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Sebastian Nares

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Machine Learning, Online Social Networks, Distributed Systems, Abuse Detection, AI for Social Good

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Alejandro Granados

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Machine Learning, Online Social Networks, Distributed Systems, Abuse Detection, AI for Social Good

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Alejandro Solano

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Current Member

Department of Computer Science
The University of Texas at El Paso

Research Interests: Security & Privacy, Machine Learning, Online Social Networks, Distributed Systems, Abuse Detection, AI for Social Good

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Riley Vaughn

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming

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John Sorhannus

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Software Engineer

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Osama Mohammed

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Software Engineer

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Neil Noyes

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Software Engineer

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Kaize Yi

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Software Engineer

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Bradley Peters

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Software Engineer

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Alexander Lopez

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Software Engineer

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Anthony Criscione

Undergraduate Student

Current Status: Alumni

Department of Computer Science
Pennsylvania Western University

Current Position: Software Engineer

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