New Students Looking for a Supervisor (advice from professor Van Oorschot):


With decisions completed for the year beginning Sept 2026, our next regular intake of grad students is Sept 2027. Discussions would typically be finalized Dec 2026/Jan 2027, with admission offers Jan-Feb 2027. For new students hoping to start in Sept 2027, I may serve as a co-adviser (secondary supervisor), but ask that you contact a primary supervisor before contacting me; among other places, contact details for some Carleton security researchers are at this link.

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. For context, here is the computer and network security textbook used in our undergraduate systems security course.

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 suggest that when contacting a potential primary supervisor, you send a preliminary PhD research proposal---as a signal that you are serious and qualified. I offer 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