Computer science professor Dima Alhadidi has won recognition as one of Canada’s 2021 Top Women in Cybersecurity.

The title was awarded by IT World Canada, Women in Security & Resilience Alliance, and the Canadian Women in Security Forum as part of the second annual Top Women in Cybersecurity Celebration, honouring 20 women working in cybersecurity across private, public, not-for-profit, and academic sectors.

Video tributes to the recipients were a highlight of a virtual awards presentation July 28.

“This prize summarizes all my achievements in this domain and makes me happy and proud,” says Dr. Alhadidi, an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science.

Alhadidi, who started at UWindsor in July 2019, says her research addresses data privacy and security issues in emerging technologies such as cloud computing and healthcare.

“Recently, there has been a tremendous growth in the collection of personal data such as social data, health data, location data, financial data, and sensor data. We need to analyze data for different applications in a way that ensures the confidentiality and privacy of user-generated data,” says Alhadidi.

“I was involved in research projects which have targeted security hardening at the code level, security hardening at the design level, and security and privacy of data in the domain of cloud computing.”

Ziad Kobti, director of the School of Computer Science, says Alhadidi is an asset to the department.

“Dr. Alhadidi brings a fresh perspective on the field of security to the Windsor community, and she is a mentor for young women pursuing a career in cybersecurity,” says Dr. Kobti.

The computer scientist has also conducted research with TD Bank about threat modelling and she won a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) discovery grant to conduct research about privacy-preserving machine learning.

This year, Alhadidi won the 2021 Faculty of Science Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Research Award at the University of Windsor.