Dr. Mamoona Asghar  (former Marie-Curie Postdoc Fellow) is working as an Assistant Professor/Lecturer (Above the Bar) in the School of Computer Science (SCS), University of Galway. Since 2006, she has over 18 years of lecturing and R&D experience in Europe (Ireland, UK) and Pakistan. She received her Ph.D. in Computing and Electronic Systems from the University of Essex, Colchester, U.K., in 2013 on a competitive scholarship from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan. 

Research Expertise: Dr. Asghar (Senior Member, IEEE) is an Applied Cybersecurity researcher who has (co)authored (mainly as a Primary or Senior author) numerous peer-reviewed Journal and Conference articles, along with a Patent (UK & International) (not granted) in the interdisciplinary research domains of Cybersecurity (including Cryptography, Threat Modelling, Malware/Intrusion detection and analysis, AI-powered Social Engineering attacks), image processing, Artificial Intelligence (Computer vision, Deep learning), Visual data analytics, and GDPR. 

Research Funding and Collaborations: Dr. Asghar is an engaged researcher dedicated to ensuring that her research positively influences society and the economy. She has secured over €1M research funding awards from national and International funding bodies, which include Horizon Europe; Marie-Curie Actions (MSCA); Enterprise Ireland; TUS-Athlone, Ireland; University of Galway, Ireland; CISCO, Ireland; Siren, Ireland; Irish Research Council (IRC); EU INTERREG NWE project (partnered with 9 countries); Vistamilk SFI Centre (Co-FI); IEEE Signal Processing Society (Travel Grant for ICIP conference, USA) and NRPU- HEC, Pakistan. 

Supporting Early-Career Researchers and Professionals: She is passionate about mentoring future generations. She has supervised 06 PhDs, ~30 MS(CS)/M. Phil students, ~45 Master’s (in CS, AI, DA, and SE), and numerous undergraduate projects/theses to completion in Ireland and Pakistan. She is currently supervising 03 fully funded, full-time Ph.D. students and 05 research staff members (04 postdocs and 01 research assistant) on different fundings at the University of Galway, Ireland.  

Supporting Research Community: She actively contributes to advancing interdisciplinary research through various roles, such as Editor, Reviewer, Organiser, scientific and Technical Programme Committee (TPC) member, and Session chair. She is a Senior Editorial Board Member for the Tech Science Journal “Computers, Materials & Continua”.

She has also led as a Guest Editor for the special issue “Novel Approaches for Emerging Cybersecurity Threat Investigation” in Applied Sciences (2023), where she managed 25 submissions. She is co-leading a Special Issue in Springer Nature Journal - Discover Networks in 2025.

As a reviewer for over 15 high-impact journals, including IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Access, Sensors, and Multimedia Systems, she helps maintain rigorous publication standards.

She has organised workshops SPETVid 2024 and 2025 and IWPSS 2020 in conjunction with the EU-organised Security Conference - International Conference on Availability, Reliability, and Security (ARES) in Belgium (2025), Austria (2024) and Ireland (2020), respectively. She serves as a member of the scientific and technical program at various research conferences, including ICBC-2024, ARES-2022 to 2024, BCS HCI Conf 2022 to 2024, ICTACSE 2022, CyberSciTech 2021 (Session chair), IEEE Multimedia and Expo 2021 (Meta-reviewer), and Irish Signals and Systems 2020 (TPC and session chair), as well as INTECH 2016.

Awards and Recognitions: In recent years, her contributions to cybersecurity research, workforce development, and mentoring have led to recognition as a winner, nominee and finalist for several prestigious national and international awards. 

🏆 Winner – Most Inspiring Women in Cyber 2025, BT Towers, London

🏆 Winner – Digital Women of the Year 2025, iTag Excellence Award, Galway
🌟 Finalist – Organisational Leadership Award 2025, iTag Excellence Award, Galway
🌟 Finalist – Mentor of the Year 2024, Women in STEM, Dublin
🌟 Nominee – Presidential Award - Supervisor of the Year 2024, University of Galway

Cyber Security: Cryptology, Malware and Intrusion Detection Systems, Social Engineering (DeepFakes, Dark Patterns), Threat Modelling, Blockchain, Privacy Engineering, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Artificial Intelligence: Deep Learning (Computer Vision), Object and Event detection from visual data, Supervised and unsupervised Machine Learning, Fuzzy Systems, Ontology.

Others: Visual Data Processing Analysis, Video Encoder Systems, Video Quality Analytics, Edge Analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) (smart systems).

• Cybersecurity Essentials
• Malware and Intrusion Detection 
• Societal Impact of AI and Cybersecurity
• Data Analysis and Visualisation
• Object Oriented Programming