Research Guests

Research never stops and lives from networking. To exchange knowledge and have our PhDs learn and work together with different influences, we invite guest researchers from all over the world. Their stays include a talk, a feedback and introduction round and an inside view into the RTG.

Past Research Guests

His PhD was a seminal work that introduced the first formalisation of the concept of 'Computational Trust' and applied it to Multi-Agent Systems. It brought together disparate disciplines and attempted to make sense of a vital phenomenon in human and artificial societies, and is still widely referenced today, being in the top tenth of one percent of Citeseerx's most cited articles in computer science. Dr. Marsh's current work builds extensively on this model, applying it to network security, Critical Infrastructure Protection, and mobile device security.

His research interests include computational trust, computational wisdom, device comfort, trust management, regret and regret management, and socially adept technologies. He is the Canadian delegate to IFIP Technical Committee 11: Security and Privacy Protection in Information Processing Systems. He is an adjunct professor at UNB (Computer Science) and Carleton University (Systems and Computer Engineering and Cognitive Science).

More information about Dr. Marsh can be found here.

She was invited in TU Darmstadt to strengthen the scientific exchange regarding privacy in social networks and electronic commerce. She is a full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the University of Montreal. She received her Ph.D. Degree from University of Paris 6 in the field of Artificial Intelligence. She was the head of the Computer Science division of the multidisciplinary Masters Program in Electronic Commerce at the University of Montreal.

She has been working with her team on computer privacy for more than 15 years. She is interested in privacy-enhancing technologies in different settings, such as social networks, electronic commerce and e-learning. She also works on privacy-preserving data mining and the protection of personal data (identity theft, information disclosure, profiling and re-identification).

Prof. Aïmeur gave a distinguished talk on “Online Privacy Issues in the Age of Exposure”. Graduate students and researchers from the TU Darmstadt as well as students and researchers from the University of Kassel were present in her insightful talk. After the talk, several researchers (working on privacy topics in the RTG) scheduled individual appointments to discuss their research ideas and future collaboration opportunities with her.

Finally, Prof. Max Mühlhäuser and Prof. Peter Buxmann had discussion on further exchanges of researchers to strengthen the common vision of RTG between University of Montreal and TU Darmstadt or University of Kassel.

More information about Professor Aïmeur can be found here.

She was invited toTU Darmstadt to strengthen the scientific exchange regarding network security monitoring. She is a DPhil student in Cyber Security, focusing on monitoring solutions for large-scale networks. Before joining Oxford, she completed MSc with Distinction in Cryptography at Royal Holloway, University of London, for which her dissertation explored adversary model in authenticated key exchange protocols. She also holds a First Class BA in Mathematics and Music from Cardiff University, where her studies included a year in the Music department at Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Her research looks at using sonification (the mapping of data to sound) to improve network monitoring capabilities in Security Operations Centres (SOCs). Sonification systems have been proposed, and to some extent tested, for use in this area before. Ms. Axon looks at refining appropriate sound designs for the network monitoring context, and validating the usefulness of sonification systems for improving monitoring capabilities.

Ms. Axon gave a talk on “Investigating the Design and Utility of Sonification Systems for Network Security Monitoring”. Graduate students and researchers from the TU Darmstadt as well as students and researchers from the University of Kassel were present in her interesting talk. After the talk, several researchers scheduled individual appointments to discuss future collaboration opportunities with her.

More information about Louise Axon can be found here.

This report is prepared in retrospective based on minutes and recollection of the visit.

As consultant and advisor Roger Clarke is familiar with privacy-protection efforts world-wide from the perspective of multiple disciplines, notably economical, legal, sociological. During his visit, Roger Clarke participated in the PAT seminar, taking the progress and challenges of the RTG 2050 as input. To prepare for this seminar, PhD student Nora Wessels prepared a reading group in the preceding week—novel and notable is Roger Clarkes definition of Privacy Invasive Technologies (PITs), an opposite of the commonly known Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs).

Later, Roger Clarke gave a Distinguished Lecture giving an overview of world-wide privacy-protection efforts, mostly from the legislation perspective.

The lecture was attended by the RTG 2050, but also many researchers from the projects CROSSING, CRISP, EC-Spride, and computer science in general. The talk trigger several discussions afterwards, in particular regarding methods to deal with PITs and economic incentives.

Throughout his visit Roger Clarke met with several PIs and PhD students in individual sessions, providing dissertation feedback and pointing out interesting/complementary related work and ongoing projects.

More information about Dr. Clarke can be found here.

For Mercator Fellows from phase I please click here.