Mohamed Chahine Ghanem

Biography

Dr Mohamed Chahine Ghanem is Associate Professor in Cyber Security and Applied AI and Cyber Security Research Theme Lead at Keele University, and Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Liverpool's Cybersecurity Institute. He was previously Director of the Cyber Security Research Centre at London Metropolitan University. He holds a PhD in Cyber Security Engineering from City St George's, University of London, an MSc in Computer Forensics and IT Security, an MEng in Computer Systems and Network Security and an MA in Academic Practice. Before academia he spent over a decade in practice, including as Associate Global Director (MENA) for Cyber Investigations and Resilience at Kroll, Cyber Security Compliance Lead at Nationwide Building Society and Head of the Digital Investigations Bureau in the Algerian Ministry of National Defence. He is a CISSP, Multi-GIAC Certified expert and Senior Fellow of Advance HE.

Research and scholarship

Dr Ghanem's research sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cyber security. His core themes are reinforcement learning and agentic AI for autonomous cyber defence and offensive security (automated penetration testing, low-latency intrusion and DDoS detection for OT, IIoT and SCADA networks); AI-enabled digital forensics and incident response (volatile-memory and Windows-registry triage, dark-web and steganographic evidence, OSINT); the security, auditing and governance of agentic and autonomous AI systems; and post-quantum and lightweight cryptography for constrained devices. He has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed journal articles and 13 IEEE conference papers, in venues including Scientific Reports, ACM Computing Surveys, ACM Digital Threats: Research and Practice, IEEE Access, IEEE TMLCN, Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation, Internet of Things and Ad Hoc Networks; several outputs were graded 4* in REF 2021 and internal REF 2029 exercises, and his work has attracted around 1,970 Google Scholar citations (September 2026). He has supervised four PhD completions, currently leads seven doctoral projects as first supervisor, and has examined nine PhDs in the UK and internationally (including Cardiff, City, Brunel, Sapienza Università di Roma and ÉTS Montréal).

Teaching

• Cryptography and Network Security - Theory and Applications -CSC-44108
• Foundations of Programming and Software Engineering -CSC-44102

Further information

Dr Ghanem is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cyber Security and Risk Auditing, Associate Editor of ACM Digital Threats: Research and Practice, founding Associate Editor of the International Journal of Cybersecurity and Risk Assessment (IGI Global), and has guest-edited special issues for MDPI Information and the Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy. He is a member of the UKRI EPSRC Peer Review College, the Advisory Board of the IEEE Emerging Technologies Network and the EPSRC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research at Liverpool. He was General Chair of IEEE CIoT 2025 (London) and Technical Programme Chair of IEEE GCET 2024, SDS 2025 and FICTA 2024. Invited keynotes include DFRWS APAC 2026 (Singapore), IEEE CSNET 2026 (Nicosia), IEEE ICNAS 2026 (Annaba), IEEE CIoT 2024 (Montréal), ICATEEE 2025, PAIS 2025, the INTERPOL Digital Forensics Expert Group Meeting 2025 (Hong Kong) and the Hamilton Institute, Maynooth University. He is external examiner for the BSc Computing at UWTSD and the MSc Cyber Security at the University of Gloucestershire, holds CISSP and multiple GIAC certifications (GCFE, GDSA, GCED, GWAPT, GWEB, GICSP), and is a member of IEEE, ACM and BCS.

PhD students

Current PhD Students:

• Mr Mikiyas Alemayehu – Topic: DDoS Detection and Prevention in IIoT using Reinforcement Learning – Writing Up.
• Mr Kai Tang (VC Scholarship) – Topic: Synchronisation, Optimisation, and Adaptation of Machine Learning Techniques in Cyber-Physical Systems.
• Mr Eduardo Almeida Palmieri – Topic: LLMs and RAG for OSINT in Locating Missing Persons.
• Mr Samuel Roy Truss – Topic: Agentic AI for IIoT Offensive Security and Compliance.
• Mr Shiraz Ahmed – Topic: Security Compliance in IoT and IIoT.
• Mr Adam Chua – Topic: Social Engineering Prevention and Response using Multi-Agent Principles
• Ms Leonie Higgins – Topic: Cloud-Based Evidence and Forensics in UK and International Legal Practice.

Collaborations and grants awards

Dr Ghanem has secured and delivered funding from UKRI/EPSRC, Innovate UK, the British Council, EU CELTIC-NEXT and HEIF. He is Principal Investigator of MAICA-Bench, a multimodal AI compliance and adversarial auditing benchmark funded under EPSRC UKOMAIN OMAIB Round 2 ; Co-Principal Investigator of the EU CELTIC-NEXT AUTo-SOC-IT/OT project; PI of a British Council Going Global Partnerships TNE grant on inclusive cyber security education; and PI or Co-PI of three Innovate UK CyberASAP projects (2020, 2024, 2025). His CyberASAP project CyDRA led to a university spin-out with significant venture funding and forms a REF 2029 impact case study. He was Technical Lead on the EPSRC SEEK project and the CyberASAP spin-out RAVENS Sciences at City, University of London. He collaborates with academic partners across Europe, North America, MENA and South Asia and with industry and public bodies including Kroll, Scotiabank (where he advises the Group CISO), Grant Thornton and the National Crime Agency. Awards include the MDPI Computers Outstanding Reviewer Award (£2,500), Best Paper Awards at ICDFSCC 2022, SNAMS 2024 and IEEE CIoT 2025, and the CTI Business Award 2019 won by his Kroll team.