Aftab Ahmed Memon

Dr. Memon has exceptional achievements and contributions in the field of Electrical and Computer engineering. He completed his Ph.D. in electronics from Miyazaki University, Japan, a master's degree in Electrical & Computer engineering from Louisiana State University, USA, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Pakistan. He started his career as a lecturer at MUET, later he was promoted to assistant professor and then in the year 2004 he was awarded the rank of a full professor. In the year 2012, he was awarded the rank of Meritorious Professor (BPS-22) in the Department of Telecommunication Engineering; it is a rank that is awarded to very few higher-ranked employees in any public sector organization in Pakistan due to their exceptional achievements. In 2006, he was given a leading role in establishing the infrastructure of the Telecommunication department which included the establishment of 12 state-of-the-art laboratories, hiring or grooming of a young faculty, curriculum development, streamlining the mission of the department, drafting the program objectives, implementation of ISO9000 & Outcome Based Education, liaising with industry to establish industry-academia linkage, and students’ mentoring. Later, Dr. Memon spearheaded a doctoral program in Telecommunication engineering, and two master’s programs namely i) M.E in Telecommunication Engineering and Management, and ii) M.E in Communication Systems and Networks. Seeing the latest trends in the market, Dr. Memon in the year 2022, launched a new bachelor of science degree program in Cyber Security with an intake of 50 students per year. His dedication and passion for research and development did not stop here, lately, he has pitched a new master of science program in Cybersecurity. The complete M.S. Cybersecurity program including curriculum has been placed before the statutory bodies for approval and is to be offered in Fall 2024.

From 2015 to 2020, Dr. Memon served as software application engineer at Schneider Electric Canada showcasing his practical hands-on expertise in implementing cutting-edge cloud-based solutions for IT-based data center infrastructure and implementing secured IoT-device network solutions at numerous sites in North America.

Dr. Memon has researched electrical, electronics, and computer engineering with applications in communication, networking technologies, photonics devices, control engineering, and biomedical engineering. Dr. Memon has researched several areas, some of which resulted in pioneer work such as introducing a hybrid cryptographic algorithm for wireless sensor nodes and D-model for location determination of mobile nodes in an indoor environment. Another leading research was conducted in the design and synthesis of nuclear power plants based on the Discrete Two-Time Scale (DTTS) model. Dr. Memon supervised three doctoral students under these research projects. Currently, Dr. Memon is researching securing wireless nodes of a corporate network employing the Hybrid Cryptographic Technique together with the D-model so that the selection of either symmetric or asymmetric cryptographic technique be made based on the location of the wireless node. The aim is to block back-door entries and further stop the lateral escalation of a malicious intruder in data networks.

Dr. Memon has expertise in characterizing photonics and semiconductor devices using several techniques such as Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, and a novel technique piezoelectric photothermal spectroscopy (PPTS). The unique expertise led him to characterize very low-density deep levels/defects and excitons in silicon, ZnTe, SI-GaAs, AlGaAs, ZnS, ZnSSe, and other promising materials for photonics and infra-red devices. Dr. Memon’s current interests include characterizing defects that degrade device performance and hence are sources of electromagnetic, photonic leakages, and backflash photons in the devices; which in turn create a vulnerability of side-channel attacks (Quantum Hacking) and quality of service (QoS) degrading/disruptive attacks in networks. Having in-depth knowledge of the piezoelectric phenomenon used in PPTS, Dr. Memon is currently applying this phenomenon to enhance the transdermal drug delivery rate in human skin, a doctoral student is being supervised under this research project.

Owing to his expertise in wired and wireless networks, Dr. Memon was given an additional assignment of heading the Information Communication and Processing Center at MUET, Jamshoro. Dr. Memon obtained invaluable hands-on experience in designing, implementing, monitoring, and securing wired and wireless campus networks. The experience of facing real-world network challenges enabled him to gain a holistic picture of network security and direct the research accordingly.

In terms of research/thesis project supervision, Dr. Memon has supervised 60 master’s degree projects and more than 30 bachelor’s thesis projects. He is currently supervising two doctoral, two master’s, and one undergraduate thesis projects.

Dr. Memon has been providing peer-review service to various reputed journals and has remained board of studies member of various universities in Pakistan. He has evaluated as a referee/expert various research papers, research funding projects, doctoral and master’s theses, and scrutinized application dossiers of candidates for the position of professor. He has remained a member of the selection board of various universities in Pakistan and inspected universities as an expert of the Charter Inspection & Evaluation Committee, Government of Sindh.

Dr. Memon has remained an active social worker, especially for underprivileged areas of the province of Sindh, Pakistan. One of his concept projects to provide Internet connectivity to rural areas of Sindh province won a third prize in the IEEE ComSoc competition. He is a senior member of IEEE, a life member of Pakistan Engineering Council, and certified in Cyber Security, ISC2.