Workforce Development
The iSTAR Lab trains students through hands-on research and studies how engineers and cybersecurity professionals are taught.
Students in the lab
Led by Dr. Eman Hammad, the lab brings undergraduate and graduate students together to work on real research problems. Graduate students work on topics that include intelligent systems, trustworthy AI, operational technology (OT) security, multi-agent systems and the security of large-scale networks. Undergraduate researchers work on topics such as intelligent systems, human-AI interaction, radio frequency (RF) interference and agentic cybersecurity.
On the CR911 project, for example, an undergraduate researcher runs attack campaigns against Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) traffic on the project’s testbed, writes the test descriptions and analyzes software bills of materials (SBOMs) for known vulnerabilities.
Education research
The lab also studies how engineers and cybersecurity professionals are trained. Its papers cover experiential learning for cybersecurity programs and for OT and industrial control systems (ICS), models for undergraduate cybersecurity summer research institutes, ethical safeguards and behavioral psychology competencies in engineering education, a modern embedded systems and Internet of Things (IoT) course, and the conflicting incentives in senior capstone projects.
- Integrating Emerging Technologies and Progressive Pedagogy in a Modern Embedded Systems and IoT Course
- Modeling conflicting incentives in engineering senior capstone projects: A multi-player game theory approach
- By-Design: Ethical Safeguards and Behavioral Psychology Competencies, A Survey of Undergraduate Engineering Majors
- Demystifying Cybersecurity Experiential Learning for Operational Technologies (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS)
- Towards Models for Cybersecurity Summer Research Institutes for Undergraduate Engagement and Education
- Towards Goal-Oriented Experiential Learning for Cybersecurity Programs
Joining the lab
Students interested in undergraduate or graduate research can email the lab director at eman.hammad@tamu.edu or use the contact form.