Waleed Farag, director of the IUP Institute for Cybersecurity and professor of computer science, received the University Senate 2023 Distinguished Faculty Award for Research.
The University Senate Awards, presented since 1969, recognize outstanding faculty for excellence in creative arts, research, service, and teaching. The announcement of the University Senate Awards is included in the university’s May commencement program booklet.
Distinguished Faculty Award for Research
Waleed Farag
Waleed Farag is a professor of computer science and the director of IUP’s Institute for Cybersecurity. As PI, Farag has secured 26 major funded grants with budgets exceeding $15 million to support his scholarly work. These projects, funded by the NSF, DoD, and NSA, established unique initiatives that contribute to the enhancement of cybersecurity research and education across the nation. He is currently the PI of two cutting-edge funded research projects: IoT Anomaly Detection and ARMZTA. Additionally, he is leading other projects including the PC4A (largest grant in IUP history), the Cyber Scholarship Program, and GenCyber, among others.
Farag’s research interests include autonomous risk mitigation, IoT security, AI/Multimedia applications, cybersecurity education, and e-learning. He has authored over 70 peer-reviewed publications/presentations, and his work was awarded Best Paper in SIGITE 2012. He is a member of Sigma Xi, ACM and IEEE.
Farag was selected from a handful of national experts as a referee for the $16-million National Cybersecurity Curriculum Project. He serves on the TPC of several major publications and as an external evaluator of faculty promotion applications for several universities across the US. In recognition of his unprecedented achievements, Farag was awarded the inaugural Raising the Research Profile of IUP and the KCNSM 2023 Dean’s Outstanding Researcher awards. He also received numerous IUP Sponsored Programs awards for Outstanding Achievements in Research, Public Service, Commitment to Sponsored Programs, and Centers and Institutes.
Farag oversees the IUP Cybersecurity program and has worked diligently since 2002 to ensure its continued designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence. He organized numerous security conferences and meetings, including the IUP Annual Cybersecurity Day. Farag received his PhD in computer science in 2002 from ODU, USA. He also holds a master’s degree in engineering and a bachelor of electrical engineering, both from Zagazig University, Egypt.