So you want to join my research team
Glad to hear that!
The information below is intended for MSc and PhD students of computer science/engineering in the Hebrew University (or to people about to enroll into one of these programs), pursuing a thesis under my supervision.
In the following paragraphs, I will walk you through the prerequisites, my expectations from you, what you can expect from me, and how to proceed. Please read the entire text carefully and carry out the instructions at the bottom.
At this point, if you haven't already, I highly recommend that you watch Prof. Guy Katz's excellent video tutorial on
finding an MSc thesis advisor. Go on, do that. I'll wait right here.
Prerequisites:
- Near full-time commitment to research
- Relevant hands-on experience (e.g. past militray service in relevant units, past employment in cyber-security companies, past research in systems/networks, etc.)
OR: Very high grade in my 67607 course ("Introduction and Topics in Information security (Cyber)") in the academic year 2024/2025 or later. I may still require a completion of some tasks to strengthen your skill set before starting the actual research.
OR: a lab under my supervision, in which you will gain some hands-on experience.
On relevant hands-on experience
The research projects I engage in require some hands-on work with systems and networks. Here are some recent examples of tasks my students had to carry out during their research:
- Compile a modified kernel of a half-baked (pre-beta) version of an operating system kernel
- Capture and generate network packets (TCP/UDP, IPv4/IPv6) in real-time (C/C++ code)
- Add logs/measurements to a kernel to study its behavior
- Build a small proof of concept website that uses some HTML5 APIs, and combine it with packet capturing
- General Linux system programming (and also Windows and other operating systems) and operation, including in cloud VMs
- Studying browser, OS kernel and OS utilities source code to understand how they work
- Reverse engineering of small pieces of kernel code, in x64 and ARMv8 architectures
- Measuring Internet behavior (noise, packet drops, filtering) from various locations
- Preparing a security patch for the Linux kernel
Of course, no research project requires all these tasks, and of course, each research project may have its own set of interesting hands-on requirements, but if you (the prospective student) don't have any experience with at least a few such tasks (
or similar ones), and you haven't taken my 67607 course then you're probably not ready for the kind of research I conduct.
But despair not. I designed a lab course in which you can gain a lot of relevant hands-on experience. Please consult me if you're interested!.
My expectations from you
In general, I expect the student to be committed to the research project. This is difficult to achieve if the student is also employed in a non-negligible capacity, and more so if the student also has to take courses in parallel (on top of the employment). I expect the student to be a self learner and to fulfill tasks (that we agree upon) quite independently. I expect the student to manage his/her own time. I expect the student to ask questions when he/she gets stuck (but only after he/she made a reasonable effort to solve the problem independently). I expect the student to exhibit perseverance -- in our research we sometimes face annoying/difficult obstacles (kernels don't compile out of the box, networks interfere with our measurements, etc.), but we do not give up. I expect students to communicate with me on a regular basis. I expect students to be responsive (i.e. respond to emails in a timely fashion). Students should exhibit a "scientific spirit": seek to get to the bottom of things, understand and explain experiment results (both success and failure), strive for accurate and reproducible results, and clear and faithful representation of the methodology, experiments, and results.
My students are seated in the security research lab room, A316.
In terms of research project deliverables, the way I see it, there are 3 "products" from the research:
- A thesis
- A paper, accepted to a (ideally, top-tier) conference
- A presentation, presented by the student at the above conference
It is important to stress that all three are needed, from my perspective. And while you may consider the thesis as the main product, if you want to pursue an academic career (or for an MSc student -- even a PhD) then an MSc thesis based on a top-tier conference paper is a good start. And presenting your research in a conference is a great way to become known academically and to jump-start your network of academic connections.
To be explicit: I expect the student to write all the above (in English), with my help of course. And delivering all three is mandatory for the completion of the degree. Typically, the thesis is derived from a paper version that got accepted to a conference.
What you can expect from me
I am genrally responsive to emails and other means of communication. You can ask me questions and I will usually relpy kindly and quickly. We work together on research directions (in most cases, I come up with the initial research direction/idea, but it can evolve; and you can
always suggest new ideas). if you're stuck, I will do my very best to help. I will guide you in all things academia, and I will help you define and pursue your academic career.
Scholarships
Usually, I am able to offer scholarships to my students. The amount and duration of the scholarship are subject to the academic and university regulations, as well as to the availability of funding and budgets. While not on-par with hi-tech full-time salaries, scholarships can provide significant financial support for students.
What to do next?
If you read through all the above, and you'd like to proceed, then please send me:
- CV
- Academic status (how far are you into your degree, what's still left), employment status (are you employed? where?, in what capacity?)
- A sample of a scientific (academic) text you wrote (all by yourself) in English. This can be a project or a term paper you submitted, etc.
- Any additional info that you find relevant
Once you do, I will respond quickly. If I think you are potentially a good fit, I will set up an interview (Zoom or face-to-face), and if this phase is successful, we will probably proceed with a lab. This lets both of us work together and get an idea of whether we do that well. It is also a good opportunity for you to see if the topics I research are of interest to you, and for me to see how well you function as a researcher. At the end of the lab you will submit a lab report and get academic credit points.
If we're both satisfied at the end of the lab, I will register you as my student, and we can continue the research together.
When to approach me
TL;DR - as soon as possible!
A research project (possibly including a ramp-up phase and usually ending in a paper submission to a top-tier conference) takes around 1 year (ballpark figure only). Then there's a phase of revising and resubmitting the paper, which can take additional 0.5-1 year. So we're looking at 1.5-2 years overall. If you don't want the research to delay your eligibility for a degree (or to only minimally delay it), you should start as early as possible. And yes, this is in contrast to some advice you're typically given about deferring the thesis reseach until you get to know the research topics in the faculty (and the faculty researchers as well), but again, see the above back-of-the-envelope calculation for reasoning.
So - ideally you should contact me as soon as you are accepted to the degree studies (you can contact me earlier, but I usually don't support/vouch for candidates).
General information
My students are seated in my lab, room A-316. We use
my lab account under HUJI CSE's github to host our projects. We use my Overleaf account for papers, theses, etc. Most research projects involve writing low-level C/C++ code, combined with some scripting (typically Python). Most code is developed for Linux (we mostly use Ubuntu). We mostly use Azure for cloud services, though this may change in the future.
