Dr Ahmad Kamel PhD

• Ph.D. in System Security, Technical University of Darmstadt, 2019
• M.Sc. in Computer Science, University of Saarland, 2013

Ahmad Kamel is an Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham Dubai, where he is responsible for the organisation and delivery of Computer Science and Cybersecurity courses. He contributes to programme-level activities including industry engagement and management support of the MSc Cybersecurity programme. He holds the role of Head of Industry and Careers for the School of Computer Science.

He also brings industry experience in the automotive domain, having worked on security and privacy aspects of embedded automotive systems and products aligned with modern automotive cybersecurity standards and regulations.

Prior to joining the University of Birmingham Dubai, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at CISPA – Helmholtz Center for Information Security in Saarbrücken, Germany, where he conducted research in system security with a focus on microarchitectural side-channel attacks and defences.

He completed his PhD in System Security at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, where he also served as a Research Assistant working on securing low-end embedded devices in large-scale IoT networks. His academic work included designing, implementing, evaluating, and publishing security solutions for embedded systems and networks. Alongside his research activities, he gained extensive teaching experience as a Teaching Assistant, supporting courses and labs in embedded and IoT security.

Ahmad holds an MSc in Computer Science from Saarland University, Germany. Across his academic career, his work spans embedded security, IoT security, and system security, with research published in leading venues such as ACM CCS, USENIX Security, NDSS, and IEEE conferences.

Selected Modules at UoBD:

• Elementary Computer Programming (UG)
• Data Structures and Algorithms (UG)
• Security of Real-World Systems (UG)
• Security and Networks (UG)
• Forensics, Malware, and Penetration Testing (PG)
• Secure Software and Hardware Systems (PG)
• Network Security and Cryptography (PG)

Ahmad Kamel’s research focuses on practical and emerging challenges in system security, with particular emphasis on microarchitectural side-channel attacks and defences, embedded systems security, and secure architectures for real-world systems.

Microarchitectural Security and Side-Channel Analysis:
His recent research includes the discovery, characterisation, and exploitation of microarchitectural leakage channels and side-channel attack surfaces, including systematic approaches to identifying proprietary prefetchers and cache-based side channels. He has also contributed to tooling and methods that support automated discovery of microarchitectural side channels.

Embedded Systems and IoT Security:
He worked on scalable and resilient attestation protocols for low-end embedded devices and large IoT deployments. His work addressed integrity verification, collective attestation, and secure device management, with applications spanning IoT networks and autonomous systems.