Huzaifah Nadeem

Huzaifah Nadeem

PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh — working on resilience and fault tolerance in critical-infrastructure control systems, with interests in distributed systems and quantum networks.

About

I am a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh, advised by Dr. Amy Babay, with an expected graduation in 2027. My dissertation, Improving Resilience in Control Systems Using Reconfiguration, studies how critical-infrastructure control systems can keep running through faults and attacks. More broadly, I work on distributed systems, cyber-physical systems, formal methods, and quantum networks.

Before Pitt, I earned a BS in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Lahore, Pakistan, graduating with High Merit in 2022.

Research Experience

Graduate Student Researcher · Cyber Energy Center, University of Pittsburgh Sep 2024 – Aug 2026

Intrusion Tolerance using Cyber Digital Twins. Investigating how cyber digital twins can strengthen intrusion tolerance in critical-infrastructure control systems, with a focus on using them as an upgrade path for legacy systems.

Graduate Student Researcher · School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh Sep 2022 – Aug 2023

Severe Impact Resilience: Framework for Adaptive Compound Threats. Studied how to improve control-system resilience against "compound threats," in which a cyberattack is timed to follow a natural hazard (e.g., a hurricane) that has already temporarily degraded the system.

Publications

Conference Papers

C-2
Tolerating Compound Threats in Critical Infrastructure Control SystemsBest Paper
Sahiti Bommareddy, Maher Khan, Huzaifah Nadeem, Benjamin Gilby, Imes Chiu, John W. van de Lindt, Omar Nofal, Mathaios Panteli, Linton Wells II, Yair Amir, and Amy Babay
43rd Int'l Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS), 2024, pp. 66–79.
IEEE Xplore PDF Slides Tool
C-1
SoK: A Tale of Reduction, Security, and Correctness — Evaluating Program Debloating Paradigms and Their Compositions
Muaz Ali, Muhammad Muzammil, Faraz Karim, Ayesha Naeem, Rukhshan Haroon, Muhammad Haris, Huzaifah Nadeem, Waseem Sabir, Fahad Shaon, Fareed Zaffar, Vinod Yegneswaran, Ashish Gehani, and Sazzadur Rahaman
28th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS), 2023.
Springer PDF

Workshop & Other Peer-Reviewed Papers

W-2
Using Digital Twins as an Upgrade Path for Critical Infrastructure Control Systems
Huzaifah Nadeem and Amy Babay
1st Int'l Workshop on Digital Twins for Dependability, Resilience and Security (DT4DRS), at DSN-W, 2025, pp. 168–175.
IEEE Xplore PDF Slides
W-1
PhD Forum: Evaluating and Designing Routing Protocols for Reliable Distributed Quantum SystemsPhD Forum Award
Huzaifah Nadeem
43rd Int'l Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS), 2024, pp. 330–333.
IEEE Xplore PDF Slides Poster Tool

In author lists, my name is highlighted. The compound-threats paper (C-2) had three equal-contribution lead authors.

Honors & Awards

Teaching

Credential

Achievement in Pedagogy (AiP) Badge — University Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Pittsburgh. Earned across Pedagogy, Educational Technology, and Online Teaching.

Instructional Experience

Co-Instructor (with Dr. Amy Babay) Fall 2025

CS 2520 / TELCOM 2321: Wide Area Networks (graduate) — fundamentals and recent research results.

Guest Lecturer (for Dr. Amy Babay) Spring 2025, 2026

Lectures and labs for CS 1652: Data Communication and Computer Networks (undergraduate) and TELCOM 2310: Applications of Networks (graduate); topics included Attack-Resilient Application Architectures and Advanced Routing, plus a socket-programming lab.

Teaching Assistant & Recitation Instructor Fall 2023 – Summer 2024

University of Pittsburgh — including CS 2510 Operating Systems, CS 2520 Wide Area Networks, CS 1613 Quantum Computation (recitation instructor; OMET 4.50/5.00), CS 1657 Privacy in the Electronic Society, CS 0007 Intro to Programming, and CMPINF 401.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Fall 2020 – Spring 2022

LUMS — CS 100 Computational Problem Solving, CS 200 Intro to Programming, CS 340 Databases, and CS 300 Advanced Programming.

Course Materials Developed

For CS 2520 / TELCOM 2321 (with Dr. Longfei Shangguan): a project comparing TCP Reno and CUBIC against BBR on the FABRIC testbed under emulated conditions; and a project building server/client video-streaming pipelines to study how delay, drop rate, buffering, and adaptive bitrate affect perceived smoothness.

Service

Program Committees & Reviewing

Artifact Evaluation Committees

Other