I’m a security researcher and a final-year PhD candidate at North Carolina State University, where I’m fortunate to be advised by Dr. Brad Reaves. I’m also the lead graduate student for the Wolfpack Security and Privacy Research lab.
I specialize in conceptualizing and developing large-scale data collection systems to study spam, fraud, and abuse. I designed, deployed, and continue to operate the largest academic telephony honeypot in the United States. As part of my dissertation, I’ve developed novel characterization techniques to study the telephony threat landscape, which have led to numerous publications and awards at top-tier computer security conferences.
I’m a recipient of the prestigious Internet Defense Award (1st place, $100,000), which recognizes security research that meaningfully contributes to the protection and defense of the Internet. I’ve also won two Distinguished Paper Awards (USENIX Security and ACM CCS), a Distinguished Artifact Award (ACM CCS), and a Best Poster Presentation Award (NDSS). The data collection techniques from my research on robocalls have driven the FCC’s regulatory policy on protecting millions of phone users across the United States from fraudulent robocalls.
I’ve demonstrated real-world impact through successful industry-academia collaborations, leading to press coverage spanning 60+ news articles. I enjoy presenting deep technical concepts to a broad audience. Through 20+ invited talks and panel discussions, I’ve presented to regulators, enforcement agencies, industry research groups, academics, engineering leaders, and students. I have over 9 years of cumulative experience in Computer Security, Machine Learning, NLP, Networking, and Software Development. I’ve worked at Cisco, Google/Mandiant, Centurylink, Bandwidth, and the Industry Traceback Group throughout my professional career.
I’m on the job market: Looking ahead, I aim to further bridge the gap between research and industry, advancing security solutions to tackle emerging threats. Do reach out on LinkedIn or via email if I’d be a good fit for your organization.
Research website on all things robocalls: robocall.science
Link to my CV.
Publications
Characterizing Robocalls with Multiple Vantage Points, IEEE Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2025
- Jäger: Automated Telephone Call Traceback, ACM CCS, 2024
- Distinguished Paper Award
- Distinguished Artifact Award
On SMS Phishing Tactics and Infrastructure, IEEE Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2024
Diving into Robocall Content with SnorCall, USENIX Security, 2023
- Who’s Calling? Characterizing Robocalls through Audio and Metadata Analysis, USENIX Security, 2020
- Internet Defense Award (1st Place)
- Distinguished Paper Award
- Thou Shalt Discuss Security: Quantifying the Impacts of Instructions to RFC Authors, Security Standardisation Research Conference, 2019
News
Oct 2024: Our paper (called Jäger) on automating telephone abuse traceback won the Distinguished Paper Award and the Distinguished Artifact Award at ACM CCS 2024.
Sept 2024: New Paper Accepted: Our work on measuring the robocalling ecosystem from multiple vantage points was accepted for publication at IEEE S&P (Oakland) 2025!
Sept 2024: I was awarded a student travel grant to attend ACM CCS 2024.
Sept 2024: Invited to present at SIPNOC 2024, a premier industry-wide conference on all things related to telephony.
Aug 2024: New Paper Accepted: Our work on automating telephone call tracebacks (identifying the originator of illegal robocalls with strong security and privacy guarantees) was published at ACM CCS 2024! Check out the paper (called Jäger) and the system prototype implementation.
May 2024: Research proposal on studying Non-English Robocalls accepted at the Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection (ConPro 2024)
May 2024: New Paper Accepted: Our work on characterizing the SMS-Phishing ecosystem ("On SMS Phishing Tactics and Infrastructure") will appear at IEEE S&P 2024!
Feb 2024: Invited talk at the North Carolina Cybersecurity Symposium
Nov 2023: Released a new curated dataset along with a technical report describing the collection of real-world robocall recordings.
Nov 2023: Invited talk at TAPS -- UNC Chapel Hill (Triangle Area Privacy and Security Conference).
Sept 2023: I'm one of the selected senior PhD students serving on a student panel at CAE-R Symposium
Sept 2023: Invited talk at SIPNOC 2023
Aug 2023: Research talk at USENIX Security 2023
Aug 2023: Invited talk at J.P. Morgan AI Research.
May 2023: Invited talk at Resideo.
April 2023: Looking forward to working with the Industry Traceback Group over the summer to combat illegal robocalls.
April 2023: I’m serving on the IEEE Security and Privacy Program Committee
April 2023: I’m serving on the WiSec Artifact Evaluation committee
Feb 2023: I’m presenting a poster on analyzing robocall audio content at NDSS 2023, San Diego.
Feb 2023: Grateful to be nomination for the Carla Savage Award for outstanding service!
Jan 2023: Our paper “Diving into Robocall Content with SnorCall” was accepted at USENIX Security 2023!
Jan 2023: I’m attending the NC-PaCE Cybersecurity Symposium.
Dec 2022: I’m serving on the 2023 ACM WiSec Program Committee!
Oct 2022: I’m serving on the ACSAC Artifact Evaluation committee
May 2022: Looking forward to an exciting summer internship with the Data Science research group at Mandiant (recently acquired by Google).
May 2022: Career Milestone: I passed my Oral Preliminary/Qualifying Exam. I’m officially a Doctoral candidate!
Apr 2022: Excited to attend RAG 2022 as an invited panelist.
Mar 2022: I’m serving on the WiSec 2022 Replicability Committee.
Mar 2022: I’m part of the IEEE S&P 2022 Poster Jury committee.
Feb 2021: I’m virtually attending NDSS 2021!
Feb 2021: I’m excited to deliver an invited talk at the Privacy and Security Seminar at Duke University.
Jan 2021: I’ll be the TA for the Cellular Network Security course. This course will discuss the secure design and operations of cellular and telephone networks, with a focus on recent research in the area.
Jan 2021: Looking forward to my summer internship at Bandwidth where I’ll be working on fraud and abuse mitigation.
Dec 2020: I passed my written prelim exam!
Dec 2020: Participated in an invited discussion at University of Michigan about our work on robocalls.
Nov 2020: Our work was featured in the NC State College of Engineering Magazine! Webpage and Magazine-PDF
Oct 2020: I’ll be (virtually) attending IMC 2020!
Sept 2020: As a co-author, I wrote an article for The Conversation (a non-profit global news network) about our work on robocalls.
Aug 2020: Our work on Robocalls won the Distinguished Paper Award and the Internet Defense Prize ($100,000 Research Grant) at USENIX Security 2020!
Aug 2020: I’m excited to present our work on characterizing robocalls at USENIX Security 2020! Check out our blog and the paper.
July 2020: In an interview, I talk about my role in our team’s initiative to provide accurate information to international students studying in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic.
July 2020: I’ll be attending the ACM WiSec conference!
May 2020: Our paper Who’s Calling? Characterizing Robocalls through Audio and Metadata Analysis was accepted at USENIX Security 2020!
Feb 2020: Won the Best Poster Presentation Award at NDSS 2020!
Jan 2020: Awarded a student travel grant to attend NDSS 2020. I’ll be presenting a poster on our ongoing work about characterizing Robocalls. Thanks ISOC and NDSS!
Oct 2019: Excited to meet fellow security & privacy researchers in the RTP area and present a poster on our ongoing work about Robocalls at TAPS
Sept 2019: Our paper Thou Shalt Discuss Security: Quantifying the Impacts of Instructions to RFC Authors was accepted at SSR 2019
Aug 2018: Excited to start my grad school journey at NC State. Go Wolfpack!