SCSA Research & Development Team
Connecting principal investigators, international co-investigators, postgraduate MS & PhD thesis researchers, undergraduate BS engineering teams, and institutional partner organizations across software security and program repair.
Core Leadership & Faculty
Leading research across COMSATS, SnT Luxembourg, Tsinghua University, and KFUPM.
Specialization: Source Code Security, Vulnerability Repair, Code Clone Detection, Software Testing
Assistant Professor & HEC-Approved PhD Supervisor leading SCSA Lab. Former Postdoc at SnT Luxembourg & SES Satellites. PhD from Tsinghua University.
Specialization: Obfuscated Malware Detection, Ensemble Learning, IoT & Android Security
Senior collaborator & co-author on advanced ensemble frameworks defending Windows, Android, and IoT malware systems (Applied Soft Computing 2025).
Specialization: Software Security & System Architecture
Academic partner collaborating on source-code security assessment, empirical software engineering, and joint student development.
Specialization: Information Security & Program Analysis
Key collaborator on large-scale vulnerability detection platforms (SQVDT) and token-based clone analysis across multi-billion LOC repositories.
Specialization: Cybersecurity, IoT Security & Ensemble Learning
Collaborating researcher co-authoring high-impact cybersecurity and malware defense studies in top-tier journals.
Specialization: Machine Learning & Software Security
Collaborator on ensemble frameworks for obfuscated malware identification and threat intelligence.
Postgraduate Research Team
Master of Science (MS CS) researchers working on vulnerability repair, AST/CFG code summarizers, Graph Neural Networks, and search-based testing under Dr. Junaid Akram's supervision.
Thesis Topic: "Automated Search Based Test Data Generation for Complex Systems using UML Models"
Research Focus: Software Testing & Search-Based Algorithms
Thesis Topic: "LLM Based Software Vulnerability Patch Recommendation System"
Research Focus: LLM Fine-Tuning & Program Repair
Thesis Topic: "In-context Learning of Software Vulnerability Detection Using LLMs"
Research Focus: In-Context Prompt Engineering & Security
Thesis Topic: "Empowering a Graph Neural Network for Feature Envy Detection and Refactoring"
Research Focus: Graph Neural Networks & Code Smells
Thesis Topic: "AICodeSummarizer: Optimizing Code Comment Generation through AST and CFG Structural Analysis"
Research Focus: Code Summarization & AST/CFG Analysis
Thesis Topic: "Automated Test Smell Detection and Recommendation in BDD Specifications"
Research Focus: BDD Specifications & Test Quality
Thesis Topic: "LLM-based Semantic-driven Approach to Detect Type-4 Code Clones"
Research Focus: Semantic Code Clones & Deep Learning
Undergraduate Research Team
Final-year project engineering teams and supervised undergraduate researchers at COMSATS University Islamabad and Xiamen University Malaysia.
A supervised final-year engineering development project combining a full-stack freelancing marketplace with AI decision assistance and blockchain payment escrow.
Team Members:
A running research project leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to detect complex software vulnerabilities in source code through fine-tuning and AST-based prompt engineering.
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A running software security project building a scalable token-based semantic code clone detection platform to capture Type-3 and Type-4 clones across large open-source repositories.
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A running research project developing an automated patch optimization engine powered by LLMs that synthesizes and verifies security patch suggestions for vulnerable code snippets.
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An intelligent code smell detection tool targeting Feature Envy through AST structural analysis, Graph Neural Networks, and automated refactoring recommendations with interactive visual analytics.
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A multi-modal web-based AI screening platform combining vision analytics, behavioral questionnaires, and machine learning models for early screening of autism spectrum and psychological disorders.
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Future / MS research thesis evaluating search-based evolutionary algorithms to synthesize test vectors and test paths automatically from complex UML state machine and sequence models.
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Future / MS research thesis investigating multi-step LLM prompting and retrieval-augmented patch generation to recommend verified security fixes for complex source code vulnerabilities.
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Future / MS research topic exploring in-context learning, few-shot prompting strategies, and domain adapter tuning for software vulnerability detection across multi-language code bases.
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Future / MS research thesis modeling code program dependence graphs (PDG) and abstract syntax trees (AST) into Graph Neural Networks to automate Feature Envy detection and method relocation refactoring.
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Future / MS research thesis building structural AST and Control Flow Graph (CFG) representations to enhance LLM code summarization and documentation generation accuracy.
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Future / MS research thesis developing static analysis algorithms to identify test smells in Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) Cucumber/Gherkin feature files and recommend refactoring steps.
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Future / MS research thesis formulating semantic embeddings and LLM representations to detect deep Type-4 (syntactically different but semantically identical) code clones.
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Completed supervised project implementing static disassembly analysis, APK opcode feature vectors, and ensemble machine learning classifiers for resilient Android malware detection.
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Completed biomedical machine learning project deploying deep convolutional neural networks to classify blood cell microscopic images and detect diagnostic anomalies automatically.
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Completed web security capstone project delivering an automated Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) static code auditor and dynamic browser defense extension.
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Completed sports analytics platform combining computer vision for ball-tracking, player biomechanics assessment, and statistical match prediction.
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Completed biomedical signal processing system utilizing audio sensor processing and machine learning to detect nocturnal sleep apnea events in real time.
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Completed software vulnerability management platform aggregating CVE repositories, automated severity scoring, and code vulnerability tracking across enterprise projects.
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Completed static code analysis suite detecting structural code smells (God Class, Long Method, Feature Envy) and generating safe automated refactoring patches.
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Completed research project capturing hierarchical Abstract Syntax Tree and Control Flow Graph structures to recommend software architectural improvements.
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Completed computer vision healthcare system utilizing deep convolutional networks for automated skin lesion segmentation and dermatological risk classification.
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Supervised student project implementing machine learning algorithms to detect synthetic financial fraud signals generated by the PaySim simulator.
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Static and dynamic security analysis project auditing OpenSSL memory safety vulnerabilities and buffer overflow defenses.
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Malware analysis project extracting assembly opcode instruction frequency patterns to classify binary malware variants.
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Supervised research evaluating feature selection techniques for automated malware detection across PE executable headers.
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Cryptographic analysis project evaluating fast correlation attack algorithms against linear feedback shift registers (LFSR).
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Mobile software engineering project building a user-centered Android application for medication reminders and emergency alerts.
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Future research topic extracting vulnerable code fragments from patch files to build a reusable benchmark for vulnerability research.
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Future research topic analyzing code clone and dependency propagation ratios across related software systems.
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Future research topic developing a tool that propagates approved vulnerability patches to matching code clones across repositories.
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Supervised Project: "Analysis and Detection of Fraudulent Transactions Using the PaySim Financial Simulator"
Supervised Project: "Malware Feature Extraction of Instruction Frequency"
Supervised Project: "Malware Feature Extraction via Machine Learning Algorithm"
Supervised Project: "ElderlyCare — an Android-based Elderly Health Assistance Application"
Supervised Project: "Detection and Defense of Vulnerability in OpenSSL"
Supervised Project: "Correlation Attack on Geffe Generator"
Supervised Project: "Chess Game Development"
Career Outcomes
Graduates mentored in the lab progressing to top global advisories, software tech leaders, and corporate research centers.
Ernst & Young Advisory Services Sdn. Bhd.
Maxwell Cloud Technology Sdn. Bhd.
China ASEAN Information Harbor
Beijing Megvii Corporation, Ltd.
Returnstar Interactive Technology
Zoho Technology Co., Hangzhou
Meiya Pico, Xiamen Software Park
Institutional Network
Institutional affiliations and research partnerships driving joint security assessments and program repair.
