Uzair Javaid
Nationality:
Pakistan
Faculty and Department:
Faculty of Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Year of Study:
4
Undergraduate University:
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences
Why did you choose to do a PhD?
I guess it has to do with with both passion and inspiration. During my undergraduate studies, I was of the opinion that I will graduate, find a job, get married and settle down. However, in my final year, I was fortunate enough to take three courses taught by visionary teachers. They were the epitome of excellency such that they inspired me to do more and pursue an academic career. By the time I demonstrated my final year project, I realized that my bachelor was just the beginning of a long journey and I was motivated to pursue higher education.
Why did you choose to do graduate education at NUS? If you received offers from other universities, why did you pick NUS?
When I graduated from bachelors, I went to Italy for my Masters. I didn’t like it there, dropped out and came back home. Then, I started to apply again and got offers from Germany and Singapore. One of the key decision criteria for me was language barrier, which made me inclined towards NUS. Second, the offer I got from NUS was PhD while the Germany one was for Masters. As my goal was to eventually do a PhD, I decided why not go for it sooner than later.
How does graduate school compare to your undergraduate experience?
It is a totally different experience. I believe that undergraduate is where one gets to fully dive into self-exploration and see which are the areas of interest. It also gives you the time and the energy to experiment with different subjects. So, it has to do much with self development and finding your call/niche. Whereas, graduate experience is about taking the findings from your bachelors and diving deeper into the subjects that you like, that interest and motivate you. It also has to do with teaching, research and collaboration which provides all the avenues required for the development of your character and profile.
Briefly share about your research or thesis (i.e. dissertation topic for Masters by Coursework students).
The introduction of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) combines physical, computational, and software components to exhibit distinct behavior modalities and enable interactions with each other that vary with context. In recent years, CPSs have become increasingly popular as they are frequently engineered for different infrastructures such as transport systems, financial systems, and smart power grids. However, due to the extensive use of CPSs in a wide array of applications and their complex dynamics, one of their major issues is ensuring security against a wide range of cyber attacks. Therefore, security is a challenging and critical aspect that needs due diligence and more attention during CPS design and development phases. My thesis was to address this by investigating different CPS security threats and proposing blockchain based specific security measures that can be taken.
What impact do you hope to have with your research?
The driving force behind my research has always been that it has to be applied research, such that it can be realized into a commercially viable product and can be used to address real-life issues. For example, during my PhD, I was able to exploit the vulnerabilities of a blockchain and guess private keys of users. This has serious implications in real-life and by all means, it should be well taken care of. In doing so, I was able to highlight how I was able to guess the private keys and what are the steps that can be taken to guard against such threats.
If you have won any academic prize/competition or been invited to speak at an international conference—share what it is, its significance, and how you worked towards achieving it.
My work philosophy always involves finding my own distinction, so naturally I was always trying to make that true. Just last January, I was honored with the Best Paper Award at the 2021 International Conference on Sustainable Energy and Future Electric Transportation. What it means is that, out of around 100 papers that were submitted to the conference, my paper ranked 1st. It was a huge milestone for both me and my supervisor, who has been an incredible mentor throughout my PhD candidature.
Also, by now, I have published a total of 15 paper. 8 of them are journal articles, 2 are book chapters and 5 are conference papers.
Share something fun from your graduate journey at NUS.
I was able to travel the world!
During my studies, I was able to visit Oslo, Norway in 2018 and Berlin, Germany in 2019 for summer schools (fully funded). Also, I was able to visit Munich, Germany and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to present my papers in the conferences. Moreover, studying at NUS gave me the opportunity to network with professionals and people from all over the world. When I came to Singapore, I was homesick for a few days but settling in at NUS, that feeling quickly went away.
Briefly share a highlight from your graduate school journey.
At the end of 2019, I got the offer for a 6 month full-time working opportunity under SGInnovate Summation Programme. This gave me the industrial exposure to see how best I could translate my research into an industrial setting.
Share a challenge you faced in graduate school and how you overcame it.
Getting my first publication. I got my first paper published after 18 months into the PhD programme. At first, I had to learn the ropes of what is the writing philosophy for papers and what are the key considerations. During this time, my supervisor was always there to guide me through this process and advised how I could overcome some of the challenges I was dealing with trying to write faster and submitting it to get early feedback from reviewers.
Share something about campus life at NUS that new students would be interested to hear about.
NUS is a breeding ground where teaching, research, entrepreneurship, friends, and world-class opportunities combine together to offer a truly unique experience, which in my opinion, is quite hard to get. Apart from all the curricular activities, I really admire how NUS is fully committed towards the mental health wellness, co-curricular activities, and all other matters for their students. They literally have a student support center, which is so very nice. I’ve always found the people nice and very accommodating. On top of that, accessibility to food, transport, and housing is also very good here.
Do you have any interesting personal stories to share? For example, about your journey to get into graduate school, personal hobbies/interests.
I am an avid videogame player. I competitively play FIFA and Tekken, and love to finish single-player RPG games. I also actively play (or atleast used to) badminton and have been doing that through out my studies. I developed interest for videogames early on in my life and I guess, it has been a driving force for me to dive deeper into complex things and get to know more about technology. Videogames is such a fascinating mix of arts, music, narrative, character development, and graphics that it never ceases to amaze me.
As a videogame player, my parents naturally were concerned if I’d perform well in studies. For this, I made an arrangement with them that they will let me study how I prefer and then, they can have a talk with me only on my result day for better or for worse. So far, it has been working out. My parents wanted me to get a PhD as they weren’t able to, and I was able to navigate towards that goal through videogames. And of course, hard work.
What message would you like to give to students interested in graduate studies in NUS?
If you’re thinking about it, go for it! Graduate studies are one of the most effective ways to get exposed to and learn more about cutting-edge research and industrial developments. In a short span of time, it gives you the chance to review a wide array of topics in focused areas. This is essentially important if you are not sure about the direction you want to take your career in.