Ellis Solaiman is a Lecturer at the School of Computing, Newcastle University. He previously received his PhD in Computing Science also from Newcastle University, where he subsequently worked as a Research Associate and Teaching Fellow.

His research interests are mainly in the area of Trust in online systems:

• in the development of Trust mechanisms in distributed systems such as the Cloud and IoT (for example automatic configuration of the quality of service and security requirements in Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and automated monitoring of such systems using smart contracts / electronic contracts). 
• the management of distributed scalable systems including Cloud and the Internet of things (IoT).
• in the development of trust mechanisms within web applications such as social media and e-commerce.
• In the development of software verification and testing frameworks in distributed systems. 

He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) since 2016, and is currently  the Degree Programme Director (DPD) for the MSc in Computer Science. 

He supervises a number of PhD students. Students that would like to do a PhD or an integrated IPhD in the above research areas are welcome to contact him for further information. 

Currently leads the following modules:

Enterprise Middleware: CSC8104

Advanced Programming: CSC8404

MSc Computer Science Projects: CSC8099

Teaching related administrative duties:

Degree Programme Director for MSc in Computer Science

Admissions Officer for MSc in Computer Science

Member of the School Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Committee

School VLE Assessment Lead

Member of Newcastle University Online Assessment and Feedback Steering Committee

 I lead projects related to trust management, quality-of-service monitoring, service-level agreements, Blockchain and smart contract technologies. Recent work is in the area of electronic contract (SLA) specification, monitoring, and verification (model checking) within distributed systems (business, cloud, and Internet of Things). 

I supervise the following PhD projects:

1. Dr Awatif Alqahtani. Specification of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for the Internet of Things (IoT). (Completed).

2. Aisha Alarfaj. Investigating Design and Trust mechanisms for conducting commerce in social media platforms. 

3. Ali Alzubaidi. Automated Monitoring of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for the Internet of Things (IoT) using Smart Contracts and Blockchain. 

4. Bakri Awaji. Investigating the application of Smart Contracts and Blockchain technology for improving transparency in higher education. 

5. Adel Albshri. Simulating Blockchain for the Internet of Things.

6. Adam Booth. The application of Federated Learning in Smart Environments.  

I also co-supervise the following PhD projects: 

1. Yinhao Li. Simplifying Internet of Things (IoT) Data Processing Workflow Composition in Edge and Datacentre Clouds.

2. Khalid S. Alwasel. Algorithms and Systems for Big Data Applications QoS Management in SDN Clouds.

3. Ryan Crosby. Using Ipsative Assessment to improve Feedback Quality and the Student Assessment Experience in University Computer Science.

https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ellissolaiman/

Students that would like to do a PhD or an integrated IPhD in the above research areas are welcome to contact me for further information: ellis.solaiman@ncl.ac.uk

Research projects:

I contribute to the following projects in various capacities:

Sustainable urban power supply through intelligent control and enhanced restoration of AC/DC networks. EPSRC-NSFC Call in Sustainable Power Supply EP/T021985/1. 2019-2022.

Osmotic MindSphere: Multi-Resolution Air Quality Modelling across Cloud and Edge, Pitch-In: Connecting capabilities for the Internet of Things, Research England. P35792/BH192113. 2019-2021.

• Alwasel K, Jha DN, Habeeb F, Demirbaga U, Rana O, Baker T, Dustdar S, Villari M, James P, Solaiman E, Ranjan R. IoTSim-Osmosis: A Framework for Modelling and Simulating IoT Applications over an Edge-Cloud Continuum. Journal of Systems Architecture 2021, 116, 101956.
• Awaji B, Solaiman E, Albshri A. Blockchain-Based Applications in Higher Education: A Systematic Mapping Study. In: 5th International Conference on Information and Education Innovations (ICIEI 2020). 2020, London: ACM.
• Alzubaidi A, Mitra K, Patel P, Solaiman E. A Blockchain-based Approach for Assessing Compliance with SLA-guaranteed IoT Services. In: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Smart Internet of Things (SmartIoT). 2020, Beijing, China: IEEE.
• Awaji B, Solaiman E, Marshall L. Investigating the Requirements for Building a Blockchain-Based Achievement Record System. In: 5th International Conference on Information and Education Innovations (ICIEI 2020). 2020, London: ACM.
• Awaji B, Solaiman E, Marshall L. Blockchain-Based Trusted Achievement Record System Design. In: 5th International Conference on Information and Education Innovations (ICIEI 2020). 2020, London: ACM.
• Solaiman E, Wike T, Sfyrakis I. Implementation and evaluation of smart contracts using a hybrid on‐ and off‐blockchain architecture. Concurrency and Computation Practice and Experience 2021, 33(1), e5811.
• Barnes J, Colquhoun J, Devlin M, Heels L, Lord P, Marshall L, Napier C, Solaiman E, Speirs N, Talbot L, Ushaw G, Witty C. Designing a Portfolio-Oriented Curriculum using Problem Based Learning. In: CEP 2020: Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Computing Education Practice. 2020, Durham, United Kingdom: ACM.
• Alqahtani A, Jha DN, Patel P, Solaiman E, Ranjan R. SLA-aware Approach for IoT Workflow Activities Placement based on Collaboration between Cloud and Edge. In: 1st Workshop on Cyber-Physical Social Systems (CPSS) 2019. 2019, Bilbao, Spain: ACM.
• Alqahtani A, Solaiman E, Patel P, Dustdar S, Ranjan R. Service Level Agreement Specification for End to End IoT Application Ecosystems. Software: Practice and Experience 2019, 49(12), 1689-1711.
• Ranjan R, Solaiman E, Villari M, Watson P. A note on tools and techniques for end-to-end QoS monitoring in Internet of Things. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing 2019, 132, 160-163.
• Noor A, Mitra K, Solaiman E, Souza A, Jha D, Demirbaga U, Jayaraman P, Cacho N, Ranjan R. Cyber-Physical Application Monitoring across Multiple Clouds. Computers and Electrical Engineering 2019, 77, 314-324.
• Li Y, Alqahtani A, Solaiman E, Perera C, Jayaraman P, Buyya R, Morgan G, Ranjan R. IoT-CANE: A unified knowledge management system for data-centric Internet of Things application systems. Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing 2019, 131, 161-172.
• AlArfaj A, Solaiman E, Marshall L. “Why would you buy from a stranger?” Understanding Saudi citizens’ Motivations and Challenges in Social Commerce. In: 17th IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT 2019). 2019, Paphos, Cyprus: Springer.
• Alarfaj AA, Solaiman E. Investigating Commercial Capabilities and Trust in Social Media Applications for Entrepreneurs. In: 9th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - Transforming Communities (C&T '19). 2019, Vienna, Austria: ACM.
• AlArfaj AA, Solaiman E. A Social Commerce Platform. In: 9th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - Transforming Communities (C&T '19). 2019, Vienna, Austria: ACM.
• Alzubaidi Ali, Solaiman Ellis, Patel Pankesh, Mitra Karan. Blockchain-based SLA Management in the Context of IoT. IT Professional 2019, 21(4), 33-40.
• Awaji B, Solaiman E. Online Education Using Blockchain and Smart Contracts. In: 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2019). 2019, Heraklion, Crete: SCITEPRESS.
• AlArfaj A, Solaiman E, Marshall L. Social Media and E-commerce in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – Trends and Future Directions. In: CHI - ArabHCI. 2019, Glasgow, UK: ACM.
• Molina-Jimenez C, Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Ng I, Crowcroft J. On and Off-Blockchain Enforcement Of Smart Contracts. In: EURO-PAR 2018 24th International European Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing - FPDAPP 2018 International Workshop on Future Perspective of Decentralized Applications. 2019, Turin, Italy: Springer.
• Alqahtani A, Patel P, Solaiman E, Ranjan R. A Toolkit for Specifying Service Level Agreements for IoT Applications. In: The 2018 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS 2018). 2018, Orléans, France: IEEE.
• Alqahtani A, Li Y, Patel P, Solaiman E, Ranjan R. End-to-End Service Level Agreement Specification for IoT Applications. In: 2018 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS). 2018, Orléans, France: IEEE.
• Molina-Jimenez C, Sfyrakis I, Solaiman E, Ng I, Wong M, Chun A, Crowcroft J. Implementation of Smart Contracts Using Hybrid Architectures with On and Off–Blockchain Components. In: The 8th IEEE International Symposium on Cloud and Services Computing (IEEE SC2) 2018. 2018, Paris, France: IEEE.
• Molina-Jimenez C, Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Ng I, Crowcroft J. On and Off-Blockchain Enforcement Of SmartContracts. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle University, 2018. School of Computing Technical Report Series 1519.
• Wang M, Jayaraman P, Solaiman E, Chen L, Li Z, Jun S, Georgakopoulos D, Ranjan R. A Multi-layered Performance Analysis for Cloud-based Topic Detection and Tracking in Big Data Applications. Future Generation Computer Systems 2018, 87, 580-590.
• Ranjan R, Garg S, Khoskbar A, Solaiman E, Philip J, Georgakopoulos D. Orchestrating BigData Analysis Workflows. IEEE Cloud Computing 2017, 4(3).
• Solaiman E, Barney J, Smith M. Building A Formative Assessment System That is Easy To Adopt Yet Supports Long-Term Improvement: A Review of the Literature and Design Recommendations. In: 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education CSEDU. 2017, Porto, Portugal: SciTePress.
• Alwasel K, Noor A, Li Y, Solaiman E, Garg S, Jayaraman P, Ranjan R. Cloud Resource Scheduling, Monitoring, and Configuration Management in the Software Defined Networking Era. IEEE Technical Committee on Cybernetics for Cyber-Physical Systems 2017, 1(3), 4-8.
• Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Molina-Jimenez C. A State Aware Model and Architecture for the Monitoring and Enforcement of Electronic Contracts. In: 18th IEEE Conference on Business Informatics (CBI). 2016, Paris, France: IEEE.
• Alqahtani A, Solaiman E, Buyya R, Ranjan R. End-to-End QoS Specification and Monitoring in the Internet of Things. IEEE Technical Committee on Cybernetics for Cyber-Physical Systems 2016, 1(2), 9-13.
• Ranjan R, Jayaraman P, Solaiman E, Georgakopulos D. Cyber-Physical-Social Clouds: Future Insights. IEEE Technical Committee on Cyber-Physical Systems 2016, 1(1), 11-14.
• Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Molina-Jimenez C. High Level Model Checker Based Testing Of Electronic Contracts. In: Cloud Computing and Services Science. Springer-Verlag, 2016, pp.193-215.
• Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Molina-Jimenez C. High Level Model Checker Based Testing Of Electronic Contracts. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2016. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1490.
• Forshaw M, Solaiman E, McGee O, Robinson P, Emerson R. Meeting Graduate Employability Needs through Open-source Collaboration with Industry. In: ACM SIGCSE '16. 2016, Memphis, TN, USA: ACM.
• Solaiman E, Ranjan R, Jayaraman P, Mitra K. Monitoring Internet of Things Application Ecosystems for Failure. IT Professional 2016, 18(5), 8-11.
• Solaiman E, Sun W, Molina-Jimenez C. A Tool for the Automatic Verification of BPMN Choreographies. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2015. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1464.
• Solaiman E, Sun W, Molina-Jimenez C. A Tool for the Automatic Verification of BPMN Choreographies. In: 12th IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC). 2015, New York City, NY, USA: IEEE.
• Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Molina-Jimenez C. Dynamic Testing and Deployment of a Contract Monitoring Service. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2015. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1460.
• Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Molina-Jimenez C. Dynamic Testing and Deployment of a Contract Monitoring Service. In: 5th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science (CLOSER 2015). 2015, Lisbon, Portugal: SCITEPRESS.
• Solaiman E. [PhD Thesis] Contract Representation for Validation and Run Time Monitoring. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2004.
• Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava SK, Solaiman EM, Warne JP. Run-time monitoring and enforcement of electronic contracts. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 2004, 3(2), 108-125.
• Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava S, Solaiman E, Warne J. Contract Representation for Run-time Monitoring and Enforcement. In: IEEE International Conference on E-Commerce. 2003, Newport Beach, California: IEEE.
• Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava SK, Solaiman E, Warne JP. Contract Representation for Run-time Monitoring and Enforcement. In: 2003 IEEE International Conference on E-Commerce (CEC 2003). 2003, Newport Beach, California, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
• Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava SK, Solaiman E, Warne JP. Contract Representation for Run-time Monitoring and Enforcement. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2003. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 810.
• Solaiman E, Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava S. Model checking correctness properties of electronic contracts. In: Service-Oriented Computing - ICSOC 2003. 2003, Trento, Italy: Springer.
• Solaiman E, Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava S. Model Checking Correctness Properties of Electronic Contracts. In: Goos G; Hartmanis J; van Leeuwen J, ed. Service-Oriented Computing - ICSOC 2003. Heidelberg: Springer Berlin, 2003, pp.303-318.
• Solaiman E, Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava SK. Model Checking Correctness Properties of Electronic Contracts. In: International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC03). 2003, Trento, Italy: Springer.
• Solaiman E, Molina-Jimenez C, Shrivastava SK. Model Checking Correctness Properties of Electronic Contracts. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2003. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 811.