Impact

Enhancing Privacy for Internet Communication Protocols: SICSA 2025 Best PhD Dissertation Award

On June 25th, recent PhD graduate, Dr. Gregor Haywood, took to the stage to receive the 2025 “Best PhD Dissertation” award from the Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance (SICSA).

Gregor (Lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity and Computing at Abertay University, and PhD Award Recipient) is standing next to Debbie Meharg, Head of Applied Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University, Director of Education for SICSA, and the Awards Chair for the SICSA PhD Conference 2025

Gregor (Lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity and Computing at Abertay University, and PhD Award Recipient) standing next to Debbie Meharg, Head of Applied Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University, Director of Education for SICSA, and the Awards Chair for the SICSA PhD Conference 2025

Haywood’s thesis on “Enhancing Privacy for Secure Internet Communications Using ILNP” focuses on how underlying communication protocols for the Internet could avoid privacy leaks, while continuing to utilise existing and unmodified hardware, infrastructure, and Internet services. His study was driven by his academic interest in the unintended design consequences within large interconnected systems:

I was captivated by working on a project that was socially relevant, deeply technical, and – ultimately – solvable. During my undergraduate degree, I started looking at private communication mechanisms as a side project which turned into my fourth year dissertation, and continued onwards within my PhD. I like finding these unanticipated problems, such as privacy leaks, security vulnerabilities, and environmental impacts, then designing new solutions that fix the problems without disrupting the operation of the larger systems at play.

(Dr Gregor Haywood)

Professor Saleem Bhatti (School of Computer Science, Thesis Supervisor) adds how Haywood’s work demonstrates what he believes to be ‘the first deployable mechanisms for perturbing traffic flow correlation attacks at the network level, as well as perturbing privacy attacks by traffic analysis as might be performed by a machine-learning system.’ For this reason, he was enthusiastic to nominate Haywood’s thesis for SICSA stating it is ‘an excellent balance between science and engineering’ that explores ‘a radical new architecture in addressing using the Identifier Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) to provide new privacy features, and an open-source implementation in FreeBSD that is usable across the existing Internet.’

The SICSA PhD Conference is a flagship event that brings together various participants from fourteen Scottish Universities to network, seek graduate researcher training, and share current interdisciplinary projects.  Dr. Tristan Henderson (Senior Lecturer and Computer Science Director of Postgraduate Research) comments that submitting to awards like SICSA encompasses the primary aim of a PhD which is ‘learning how to become a researcher.’  For this reason, SICSA is a valuable opportunity that allows for ‘visibility’ and ‘recognition’ of one’s work both nationally and internationally adds Professor Bhatti.

In recalling his own researcher journey, Dr. Haywood expresses that whether it is learning a ‘can-do attitude’ from his supervisor or picking up fun new quirks such as ‘hoarding hand-me-down computer hardware,’ the School of Computer Science and his PhD research have given him the space to thrive for who he is:

I suspect I will always have a compulsive need to understand things deeply – but now I have the tools to harness that into computer systems research, and whether it is celebrating the wins at conference dinners with my peers, or consoling each other at the pub when it falls apart, it is hard to put words to the joy I have found in being part of a community that can match my passion, debate my technical points, and jump on board with my research tangent conversation starters.

 It’s also very exciting to celebrate a success in privacy research. Many headlines are about data breaches and privacy failures, and so much research is about finding new privacy vulnerabilities. Being able to say “we made things better” is a great opportunity to inject some hope into the research community.                                            

(Dr Gregor Haywood)

This elation also extends to the pride that both Dr. Henderson and Professor Bhatti feel towards having an alumnus from the School of Computer Science win this award. ‘It is a great honour’ they both expressed, and a fantastic example of the impact of research outside of the university. Dr. Henderson adds that within Computer Science, there are a number of dissertation awards, including SICSA and the BCS in the UK, as well as the ACM internationally. He encourages students to indulge in these opportunities, with Dr. Haywood noting that ‘participating in this and other inter-institutional networking events was a valuable way for me to broaden my research mindset throughout the PhD’ and if you are considering applying yourself or nominating a student for it, ‘do it! You have nothing to lose and plenty to gain. Remember it is the reviewers’ job to judge your work, not yours – you just need to judge whether you have time to submit.’

Dr. Haywood is now a Lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity and Computing at Abertay University with key aspects of his work being available to read online until his thesis is published in June 2026.

ILNP web page: https://ilnp.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk

Blog written by Nina Globerson

Congratulations to Saleem!

We’re thrilled to share some fantastic news and congratulate Saleem on being selected as one of the recipients of the ICANN Grant Program for his  project: “Deployability of ILNP at Global Scale.”

The announcement was officially made by ICANN on May 29, 2025, as part of their first-ever cohort of grant recipients. You can read the full announcement here.

This is a major achievement and a testament to Saleem’s dedication. Once again, congratulations, Saleem!

 

Successful Doors Open Event

The school hosted a highly successful Doors Open event yesterday, welcoming many visitors including industry professionals, university colleagues from other schools (e.g. Psychology & Neuroscience, Biology and Chemistry) and prospective students. Attendees had the opportunity to explore cutting-edge projects in Artificial Intelligence, Human-computer Interaction, Software Engineering and engage with interactive technology demonstrations.

Highlights of the event included the popular “Hot Tattie” sessions in Artificial Intelligence, Programming Languages and Human Computer Interaction. The enthusiastic participation and positive feedback from visitors highlighted the school’s commitment to outreach, education, and fostering a strong connection between academia and the broader community.

Special thanks to Ruth Hoffmann and Kirsty Ross who organised this event. We would like to thank all who attended Doors Open and made it a success. We look forward to seeing you next year!

GAP Days Summer 2024 @ St Andrews

The School of Computer Science hosted this years Summer GAP Days between 26th August and 30th August.

GAP Days are workshops where developers and users with programming experience are invited to influence the future development of [GAP] by initiating and contributing to discussions and coding sprints.

These GAP Days have been special as we celebrated 10 years of the [Digraphs] package as well as 10 years of [GAP Days] (to the week!).

We had a great selection of speakers and attendees from varied backgrounds, which cumulated in the release of the re-vamped GAP webpage, and over 30 new versions of packages!

Doors Open @ CS, 11th April (10am-4pm)

On 11th April, the School of Computer Science at St Andrews will host our Doors Open event. We will be thrilled to welcome any and all visitors from outwith the School, whether you are locally based, from elsewhere in the UK, or from overseas.

As a rapidly growing school, we are looking to build relationships with new partners and are keen to find out how we can help you, your companies, and/or organisations to solve problems and improve processes.

Our Doors Open Day will have over 60 individual exhibits and activities. Our presenters will be our staff and students, with representation from 1st year undergrad through to PhD students, academic and technical members of staff.

Please register here if you would like to attend to enable us to order sufficient food!

 

Doors Open Event Success

We had a wonderful time yesterday at the Doors Open day. We welcomed more than 200 visitors who were interested in learning more about our programs, facilities, and research.

We showcased some of our cutting-edge projects in artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and software engineering. Our visitors had the chance to interact with virtual reality systems, and smart devices. They also learned about the ethical and social implications of these technologies.

Special Thanks to Ruth Hoffmann, Ken Boyd and Kirsty Ross who organised the event. We would also like to thank everyone who attended the doors open day and made it a success. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us at collaborate-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

The Schools of Computer Science and Mathematics & Statistics are now an Institutional Member of the European Women in Mathematics

The Schools of Computer Science and Mathematics & Statistics are now an Institutional Member of the European Women in Mathematics (EWM). The EWM is an association dedicated to encouraging women to study mathematics and related sciences (such as computer science), supporting them in their careers and promoting scientific communication.

Being an Institutional Member supports the EWM in their mission and promotes the role of women in mathematics and related fields while strengthening connections across the European community of mathematicians (which is the primary goal of the EWM). “With the help of our institutional members we are able to empower more female mathematicians by offering travel grants, organize panel discussions and providing a platform to communicate.”

If you would like to find out more about the EWM or how the Schools support Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity, please get in touch with the ED&I officers or Ruth Hoffmann who is a EWM country coordinator for the UK.

Open Virtual Worlds Impact Innovation Funding Success

Dr Alan Miller and Catherine Anne Cassidy of the Open Virtual Worlds research group have been successful in funding from the Impact Innovation Fund for their project “Evidencing and Amplifying Impact of Immersive Exhibits in Highlands and Islands Museums”. The project will evaluate the value of digital heritage engagement with virtual reality exhibitions and further develop opportunities to preserve and promote cultural heritage in the highlands and islands of Scotland. Collaborative activities and approaches trialled are intended to discover ways to maximise positive impact. Exhibits are part of the Northern Heritage Network, which provides an infrastructure for transnational collaboration of heritage organisations to preserve and promote heritage within and beyond the North Sea region. The geographical focus of the network is: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Scotland, Island of Ireland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and the Baltic countries.

Lockdown and COVID-19 meant that the focus of the heritage sector was how to connect with audiences remotely. Whether this be through live online events, social media, virtual tours or other means. In the coming year there is much emphasis on sustainability and on the return of visitors to museums.

Evidence prior to COVID-19 shows that such exhibits have a positive impact in: communicating heritage, improving the sustainability of museums, improving visitor numbers and contributing to the wider Scottish economy. This is recognised by museums who are setting aside valuable space, and time to host immersive exhibits in the coming year. Through developing, deploying and using immersive exhibits we will enhance the “within walls” museum experience with the following impacts:

  • Create digital heritage assets: including 3D models, historic scenes and records of intangible heritage.
  • Improve the way that heritage is communicated.
  • Connect communities with their museum and their heritage.
  • Make learning engaging, improve understanding and motivate learning
  • Contribute to social cohesion and inclusion.
  • Contribute to well being.
  • Contribute to the sustainability of museums.
  • Contribute to the tourist economy and prosperity.

Design of a Heritage Impact Toolkit for digital heritage engagement evaluation will facilitate relevant data collection for West Highland Museum, Timespan Museum, Tomintoul & Glenlivet Discovery Centre, North Isles Landscape Partnership Scheme, Finlaggan Trust, Museum of Islay Life, and Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath.

Through surveys, interviews and observation we will collect evidence of impact. Identified profiles for evidence collection include end users (visitors), stakeholders (community), museum and visitor centres (heritage practitioners), and third party organisations (e.g., Creative Scotland, European Commission, ICOM), This will be combined with statistics including visitor numbers and feedback from visitors. Inquiry will cover:

  • Accessibility – whether the exhibition is easy to use and improves accessibility to heritage,
  • Learning – whether the exhibit is effective as a learning resource, helping to learn, reassess views on the topic and generating motivation to engage,
  • Social impact – whether the exhibit helps users engage in heritage and promotes community develop inclusion and cohesion,
  • Engagement – whether the exhibit is engaging and immersive.

SICSA DVF Seminar – Dr André G. Pereira

We had our first School seminar of the semester today. The speaker was André G. Pereira visiting Scotland on a SICSA DVF Fellowship. André is working on AI Planning problems, an area that is closely related to the work of our own Constraint Programming research group.

Title: Understanding Neuro-Symbolic Planning

Abstract: In this seminar, we present the area of neuro-symbolic planning, introducing fundamental concepts and applications. We focus on presenting recent research on the problem of learning heuristic functions with machine learning techniques. We discuss the distinctions and particularities between the “model-based” and “model-free” approaches, and the different methods to address the problem. Then, we focus on explaining the behavior of “model-free” approaches. We discuss the generation of the training set, and present sampling algorithms and techniques to improve the quality of the training set. We also discuss how the distribution of samples over the state space of a task, together with the quality of its estimators, are directly related to the quality of the learned heuristic function. Finally, we empirically detail which factors have the greatest impact on the quality of the learned heuristic function.

Biography: Dr. André G. Pereira is a professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. His research aims to develop and explain the behavior of intelligent systems for sequential decision-making problems. Dr. Pereira has authored several papers on top-tier venues such as IJCAI, AAAI, and ICAPS. These papers contribute towards explaining the behavior of heuristic search algorithms, how to use combinatorial optimization-based reasoning to solve planning tasks, and how to use machine learning techniques to produce heuristic functions. Dr. Pereira is a program committee member of IJCAI and AAAI. His doctoral dissertation was awarded second place in the national Doctoral Dissertation Contest on Computer Science (2017), and first place in the national Doctoral Dissertation Contest on Artificial Intelligence (2018). Dr. Pereira advised three awarded students on national events, including first place and finalist in the Scientific Initiation Work Contest (2018, 2022), and finalist in the Master Dissertation Contest on Artificial Intelligence (2020).