For prospective grad students: please read this before asking me to be your supervisor (advice from professor Van Oorschot):


Our next regular intake of grad students into Carleton University's School of Computer Science is Sept 2027. For this, discussions with potential supervisors would typically be finalized Dec 2026/Jan 2027, with admission offers in Jan-Feb 2027. I will not be serving as a primary supervisor for new students starting Sept 2027, but remain open to being a co-adviser (secondary supervisor). Before sending me email asking if I will supervise you, you should contact a primary supervisor (most likely, one of my colleagues in our School of Computer Science, for example by exploring our security lab site). I am unable to personally respond to all inquiries, but will do so if you have begun discussion with a primary supervisor.

Canadian students considering a graduate degree: Faculty members in Carleton's School of Computer Science are particularly interested in hearing from prospective students who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada. For research in security, we generally expect good grades, and relevant background (ideally, including an undergraduate degree in Computer Science or Electrical/Systems Engineering; an IT undergraduate degree will typically require additional qualifying courses at Carleton). For context, here is the computer and network security textbook used in our undergraduate systems security course; many potential graduate supervisors in security may expect that you are familiar with such material from your background courses.

International grad students: If you are neither a Canadian citizen nor a permanent resident of Canada, reading what follows may be of particular help. Prospective international Master's students at Carleton face significant international tuition fees (these are reduced for PhD students), aside from relatively high living expenses. Combined, these present an insurmountable barrier to many non-residents, and often cannot be fully offset by research funding. If you are a prospective international PhD student, I strongly recommend that when contacting a potential primary supervisor, you send a preliminary PhD research proposal---as a signal that you have given serious thought to the matter and are qualified (failing to do this will significantly reduce the likelihood of a response from me). Please also read my further advice here: "Will you be my supervisor/can you write me a letter?".

Current graduate students (supervised):


Eric Leblanc, Louis Pantazopoulos

Past students, graduated (supervised, *co-supervised):


PhD: Ali Sadeghi Jahromi* (Apr.'25), Srivathsan Morkonda Gnanasekaran* (Dec.'23), Christopher Bellman (Aug.'22), Furkan Alaca (May'18), AbdelRahman M. Abdou* (Aug.'15), Gerardo Reynaga* (Aug.'15), David Barrera (Aug.'14), Mansour Alsaleh (Dec.'11), Glenn Wurster (Apr.'10) M. Mannan (Apr.'09), Sonia Chiasson* (Jan.'09), David Whyte* (Sept.'08), Julie Thorpe (Jan.'08), Tao Wan* (Jan.'06), Mike Just* (Dec.'98)

Masters: Cheldon Mahon (Apr'21), Christopher Bennett* (Jan'21), Reza Samanfar (Jun.'20), Hemant Gupta (Aug.'19), Daniel McCarney (Aug.'13), Carson Brown (Dec.'10)*, David Barrera (Aug.'09), Jennifer Sobey (Sept.'08)*, Tim Furlong (Apr.'07), James Kelly (Aug.'06), M. Mannan (Aug.'05), Glenn Wurster (Apr.'05), Vashek Matyas (Dec.'94)

Post-doc: Xavier de Carné de Carnavalet (2019-2020) A.M. Abdou (2015-2017), Jeremy Clark (2011-2013), Glenn Wurster (2010), Sonia Chiasson (2009), Tara Whalen (2009), James Muir (2005-2007), Deholo Nali (2005-2007), Hajime (Jim) Inoue* (2005-2007), M. Vargas Martin (Jan.'03-Aug.'04)

Mathematics Genealogy Project

Miscellaneous thesis advice:


Some advice on how to organize your thesis (from Prof. John Chinneck, SCE, Carleton)
Some guidelines on PhD thesis scope and structure (from UBC faculty of grad studies)
Thesis elements that may be expected by PhD external examiners (from UBC also)
On theory vs. building real things (engineering), and persevering when your papers are rejected (Feng Hao)
Networking: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students (Phil Agre on how the research world works and how people in it operate).

Last updated: Aug 2026