Experience

UNSW Computer Science and Engineering

• Australia
• Higher Education
• 100 - 200 Employee

• Lecturer

  • Jul 2023 - Present

  Career academic focusing on the intersections of cybersecurity and AI with the hardware, embedded systems and industrial informatics space. Career academic focusing on the intersections of cybersecurity and AI with the hardware, embedded systems and industrial informatics space.



NYU Tandon School of Engineering

• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Research Assistant Professor

  • Jan 2022 - Jul 2023

  As a Research Assistant Professor I am taking on additional responsibilities and tasks as part of my post-doctoral experience at NYU, including teaching advanced digital design and advanced hardware security courses, working to author research proposals, and expanding the scope of my research in hardware, software, and embedded systems cybersecurity.

• Postdoctoral Associate

  • Jul 2020 - Jan 2022

  In this role I am working at NYU's Center for Cybersecurity with an initial focus on embedded security in additive manufacturing (AM). Research in this area largely falls into two areas, (1) in counterfeiting/anti-counterfeiting, and (2) in prevention/causes of denial of service and/or reduced quality of service (e.g. printer/part damage). This has involved both practical research into hardware/software 'trojan horses' as well as in part design for product guarantees and testing. Along with this I have also done pedagogical work in two postgraduate-level courses, "Security in Additive Manufacturing" (a new course) and "Advanced Computer Hardware Design". Show less



The University of Auckland

• New Zealand
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Industrial Informatics Technician

  • Nov 2019 - Jul 2020

  In this role my main objective was to recommission an old MPS 500 industrial informatics educational system. In the initial stages of the project this involved rebuilding/rewiring/rewriting documentation for the physical components. Then, we converted the old (circa 2004) PLC control system to a modern Beckhoff PLC with EtherCat and ASi fieldbusses, so new control code in Structured Text was also written. Finally, we created pedagogical materials (e.g. taught lab manuals) for the entire system, so that it may be used more easily with final-year and postgraduate Engineering students. Other tasks while working in this role included the creation of other related lab materials and assistance in the lab induction process for incoming ECE students. Show less

• Ph.D. Candidate

  • Jul 2015 - Feb 2020

  In July 2015 I started my PhD study at the University of Auckland, in the field of Embedded Systems in Industrial Informatics. My focus was on proving timing and functional safety properties over Industry 4.0 applications. In order to achieve this I developed tooling and frameworks to aid industrial designers in analysing and verifying their designs. I worked extensively in the Go and the C programming languages in a variety of different embedded environments, including with Atmel, ST, and Altera HPS systems; and I worked with Chisel, Verilog and VHDL on Altera FPGAs. I also spent some time with model checkers as well as in PCB design. Show less

• Professional Teaching Fellow

  • Feb 2019 - Nov 2019

  In this role I was designing and delivering lectures for two courses. The first, CS302 Design: Software Practice, is a project-based course in which we had the students build two complete applications. The first project was based in Java, and students had to work in pairs to implement a rogue-like game. The purpose was for the students to learn concepts of threading, object-oriented programming, and basic AI development. The second project was based in Python, and had the students work individually to build a distributed social network that functioned similarly to Twitter. The students had to ensure that their systems worked in an interoperable manner with all other students in the class. In this, the students learned elements of web design, object oriented Python, HTML/Javascript/CSS, networking, and API development. Optional extensions were also designed to introduce elements of cryptography.The second course, MECHENG371 Digital Circuit Design, is a course for students to be introduced to the concepts of and development for FPGAs using Verilog. In my portion of the course, they were taught basic combinatorial and sequential logic designs. The course culminates in a comprehensive exam and a project where the students work in pairs to implement a complete feature calculator from scratch, including keypad scanning, LED segment outputs, and mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, remainder division, and memory operations MR MS MC). In these two roles I was rated very highly by the students in the end-of-semester surveys. Show less

• Healthcare Robotics Programmer

  • May 2014 - Aug 2015

  As part of this team I was part of two major projects - firstly, I helped with the construction of components of a software platform which was executed primarily on healthcare robots that help in GPs and nursing homes. This work involved Flash/Actionscript as well as Javascript (ES5) and HTML.Secondly, I helped with the construction of a full-stack web application which was for the storage, processing, and analysis of patient data. This was constructed purely in Go with an SQL Server database. Show less



NASA Ames Research Center

• United States
• Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing
• 700 & Above Employee

• Research Intern

  • Jun 2019 - Aug 2019

  In 2019 I was selected by the New Zealand Space Agency for the NZ Space Scholarship, which sent me and three other Kiwis to the NASA Ames Research Center as part of the International Internship Programme. At Ames I worked with the Intelligent Robotics Group on the tensegrity robot called SUPERball. The project involved working with neuromorphic computing - more specifically, we used a spiking neural network as a oscillating source as a central pattern generator to control a gait for the robot. Using machine learning techniques we were able to tune the design further, and established this as a viable alternative to more analytical approaches to controlling SUPERball. Show less



Vend

• Kuwait
• Consumer Services

• Support Engineer

  • Feb 2014 - May 2014

  At Vend I was part of the Support Engineering team. We were responsible for working with more serious support tickets, as well as bug-fixing parts of the Vend app. I worked with PHP/Symfony and SQL mostly, troubleshooting glitches and finding out their root causes.

• Intern / Customer Support Officer

  • Nov 2012 - Feb 2014

  At Vend I held the dual positions of a Customer Support Officer, and an Intern.As a Customer Support Officer I was responsible for answering and dealing with support tickets - which required a wide variety of skills and talents. I had to use SQL, analytics, and test procedures with many different cloud based systems.As an Intern I was occasionally called upon by other divisions of Vend, such as the QA team, where my programming knowledge was sometimes put to the test.

• Summer Research Scholarship

  • Nov 2013 - Jan 2014

  Every year the University of Auckland has a list of Summer Research projects that are awarded as scholarships to capable students. Here, I was responsible for the creation of an ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) testing rig, which was composed of several remote controlled cars, wireless traffic lights, and visual recognition cameras. I used the XBee communications platform, OpenCV, C, and Python programming to complete the project which I then went on to present at the ITS Asia Pacific Forum 2014. Show less

• Enrolment Assistant

  • Jan 2012 - Feb 2012

  As an 'Enrolment Assistant’ I had to help students who were applying for and enrolling in classes in 2012. This was a front desk job which involved the use of many different kinds of software, and required helping many different kinds of people with their different issues. As an 'Enrolment Assistant’ I had to help students who were applying for and enrolling in classes in 2012. This was a front desk job which involved the use of many different kinds of software, and required helping many different kinds of people with their different issues.



Turner Centre at Kerikeri

• Lighting Technician

  • Oct 2006 - Jan 2011

  For many years I was a technician in Kerikeri’s only major theatre, the Centre at Kerikeri. This involved many different tasks, such as rigging stage lighting, operating a followspot, managing shows, and learning to use many different kinds of technical equipment. I was trained in OSH regulations and always had to maintain very high standards of professionalism as I was often working with extremely high level international performers. For many years I was a technician in Kerikeri’s only major theatre, the Centre at Kerikeri. This involved many different tasks, such as rigging stage lighting, operating a followspot, managing shows, and learning to use many different kinds of technical equipment. I was trained in OSH regulations and always had to maintain very high standards of professionalism as I was often working with extremely high level international performers.