opportunities

I am always looking for motivated Ph.D. students to join my team at UCL. If you are a prospective candidate, I invite you to read this page before contacting me for Ph.D./research opportunities.

Vacancies: Ph.D. Opportunities

In this section I planning to keep up-to-date information (as much as possible) about possible Ph.D. opportunities under my supervision. This list may not be exhaustive, and (depending on when you read this page) may contain expired opportunities.

Please note that these opportunities are highly competitive and funding is not guaranteed.

Open PhD Opportunities

Closed PhD Opportunities

  • CDT in Cyber-Physical Risk: “Risk assessment and mitigation of threats to AI-enabled devices in cyber-physical-social systems” Deadline: February 15, 2026 Home Candidates Only
  • “Rethinking Intrusion Detection with Advanced AI for Explainable, Robust and Cost-Aware Decisions” Deadline: January 5, 2026 (13:00 UK time) Home/International Candidates

This list was last updated on March 9th, 2026.

Vacancies: PostDoc Opportunities

I currently have no PostDoc openings.

Research Vision

My research focuses on developing adaptive cybersecurity solutions by leveraging behavioral modeling, knowledge-driven systems, and the latest advances in artificial intelligence. A core theme of my work is ensuring that these models are not only effective at identifying emerging threats and novel attack patterns, but also produce interpretable and explainable decisions that empower security analysts to make informed responses.

I am especially interested in adversarial and dynamically evolving environments, where classic detection methods often break down due to shifting threats and adaptive attackers. My research includes approaches for embedding expert knowledge into AI-driven systems, such as neurosymbolic AI, to improve their trustworthiness, robustness, and transparency. I am also keen to study the opportunities and risks posed by emerging technologies like large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI systems, while keeping a practical focus on cost-effective solutions, for example by exploring the use of small language models (SLMs).

If you’d like to get a sense of my research interests and whether this area excites you, I encourage you to browse some of my latest papers.

I am looking to solve problems in many domains with incoming students, including (but not limited to):

  • Embedding Expert Knowledge in ML Systems for Security
  • Explainable Security solutions
  • Trustworthy Dataset Curation
  • AI-Driven Threat Detection, including novel applications of Small Language Models (SLMs)
  • Automated Security Testing
  • Co-designing AI-driven solutions to support analysts in real-world security investigations, ensuring methods are genuinely practical and user-centric

Prospective Ph.D. Candidates

I am looking for candidates with a BSc/MSc in Computer Science (or analogous), and a strong mathematical and systems security background. Passion and commitment may partially compensate for background deficiencies in either of these two (but hardly for both). You need to be comfortable with scripting and coding, preferably in Python. You must hold a genuine interest with my research agenda, and in improving the state-of-the-art through top-quality publications.

Getting a Ph.D. is extremely challenging and, often times, frustrating. Experiments take long hours and often do not work out as expected. Top conferences have an acceptance rate of 10-15%, which means you will face a lot of rejections. Creating new knowledge is extremely rewarding, but requires creativity, persistence and motivation. This is part of the reason for which I am considering only full-time applications at this point in time.

If you are interested in doing a Ph.D. in Computer Science under my supervision at UCL, and if you are still keen to after reading the premise above, you should definitely write me an e-mail with your CV and interests (be sure to read all of this page before sending).

Make sure that you really motivate why you are interested in joining my team, as I receive many applications and I am looking for candidates that stand out in terms of passion and experience.

Please note that you will always be evaluated by one or more committees, and your admission does not arbitrarily depend on me.

If you insert “Bahamut 4.0” in your e-mail subject, it will increase your chances of receiving a response from me, since I will know you have read this page. I receive many applications, and some of them are very de-contextualized.

Research Visitors

I am generally happy to host Ph.D. students and PostDocs as visitors (who can visit with their own funding), but I have been slowing down the intake because of my workload. If you have a specific project that you would like to do, please make sure to mention that in your e-mail, as it may affect which visitors to prioritize.

Please take into account that the formal process for approval of research visitors can take about 2-3 months.