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I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing, Newcastle University (NU). Having a PhD in Computing Science, MSc in Information Security, and BSc in Computer Engineering, I’ve been conducting information security research since 2008.

I work on sensor, mobile, and IoT security, security standardisation, and usable security and privacy. I work with W3C as an invited expert on sensor specifications. I am particularly interested in real-world multi-disciplinary projects. If you are looking for collaborative projects, contact me.

I am an advocate for EDI and particularly support women in STEM through my research as well as outreach programmes and mentoring. 

I conduct research on all aspects of the security and privacy of sensing technologies on a wide range of sensors (biometric, communicational, motion, ambient, etc.) and on different platforms (e.g. mobile, IoT, buildings, animals, Agritech, Femtech). My research includes performing technical attacks (on user activities, touch actions, PINs, payments), designing solutions (e.g. preventing MITM attacks in contactless payment), improving standardisation (e.g. EMV, ISO, W3C, GDPR), and conducting user studies (via interviews, workshops and online platforms).

I also research and collaborate with other research teams on topics such as web security, privacy, usable security, e-voting, blockchain, payment security, and applied AI and Machine Learning (ML).

Here is a list of projects that I supervise:

2021- 2023: Security, Privacy, Bias and Trust in Fertility Technologies (CyFer), PETRAS funded, Laura Shipp

PhD projects: 

2021-now: Blockchain in Agritech, EPSRC DTP PhD student, Chris Dillon

2020-now: Animal-tech Security and Privacy, EPSRC DTP PhD student, Scott Harper

2019-now: IoT Sensor Hardware Security, EPSRC DTP PhD student, Dante Gray

Co-supervising:

2021-now: User Perception and Practices of Incident Response Systems: Naoom Abuabah

2019-now: Security and Privacy of Smart Buildings, Rawan Taher

MSC projects:

2021: A Privacy-Preserving ML-based Face Mask Recognition System, Zey Aki

2021: An Android Game App for Sensor Security and Privacy, Rory Jones

2020: Information Leakage via Mobile Ambient Sensors, Chris Makarouna

2020: Privacy Analysis of Popular Android Apps in India, Adi Vaidya 

I co-teach the BSc System and Network Security module at NU. I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I have been supervising PhD and MSc students since 2019 and giving guest lectures to MSc and BSc students since 2015.  

I have the experience of authoring and leading Massive Online Courses (MOOC) on cyber-security which has had over 45k subscribers.

Before starting my PhD in 2012 in the UK, I was a permanent faculty member, hired by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology where I developed and led new CS modules, and was shortly the head of the CS group at Payame Noor University. 

• Mehrnezhad M, Van Der Merwe T, Mitchell C. Guest Editorial: Security and Privacy. IEEE Communications Standards Magazine 2021, 5(3), 10-11.
• McCorry P, Mehrnezhad M, Toreini E, Shahandashti SF, Hao F. On Secure E-Voting over Blockchain. Digital Threats: Research and Practice 2021, 2(4), 33.
• Hao F, Wang S, Bag S, Procter R, Shahandashti S, Mehrnezhad M, Toreini E, Metere R, Liu L. End-to-End Verified E-Voting Trial for Polling Station Voting. IEEE Security & Privacy 2020, 18(6), 6-13.
• Harper S, Mehrnezhad M, Mace JC. User Privacy Concerns and Preferences in Smart Buildings. In: 10th International Workshop on Socio-Technical Aspects in Security (STAST 2020). 2020, Guildford, UK.
• Toreini E, Shahandashti SF, Mehrnezhad M, Hao F. DOMtegrity: ensuring web page integrity against malicious browser extensions. International Journal of Information Security 2019, 18, 801-814.
• Mehrnezhad M, Toreini E. What Is This Sensor and Does This App Need Access to It?. Informatics 2019, 6(1), 7.
• Nezhad MM, Mehrnezhad M. A child recognition system based on image selection patterns: Work in progress. In: STAST2017. 2018, Orlando, Florida: Association for Computing Machinery.
• Mehrnezhad M, Toreini E, Alajrami S. Making sense of sensors: Mobile sensor security awareness and education. In: STAST '17 Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Socio-Technical Aspects in Security and Trust. 2018, Orlando, Florida: Association for Computing Machinery.
• Mehrnezhad M, Toreini E, Shahandashti SF, Hao F. Stealing PINs via mobile sensors: actual risk versus user perception. International Journal of Information Security 2018, 17(3), 291-313.
• Mehrnezhad M, Toreini E, Alajrami S. Making Sense of Sensors: Mobile sensor security awareness and education. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2017. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1510.
• Mehrnezhad M, GhaemiBafghi A, Harati A, Toreini E. PiSHi: click the images and I tell if you are a human. International Journal of Information Security 2017, 16(2), 133-149.
• Mehrnezhad M, Ali MA, Hao F, van Moorsel A. NFC Payment Spy: A Privacy Attack on Contactless Payments. In: Security Standardisation Research, SSR 2016. 2016, Gaithersburg, MD, USA: Springer International Publishing.
• McCorry P, Toreini E, Mehrnezhad M. Removing Trusted Tallying Authorities. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2016. School of Computing Science Technical Report Series 1502.
• Mehrnezhad M, Hao F, Shahandashti SF. Tap-Tap and Pay (TTP): Preventing the Mafia Attack in NFC Payment. In: 2nd International Conference on Research in Security Standardisation (SSR'15). 2015, Tokyo, Japan: Springer.