Lab Members

PhD Students:

Joseph O'Neil (2025–present), co-supervised with Dr. Srini Sampalli (Dalhousie University)

Joseph has just recently completed his Research Aptitude Defense at Dalhousie University in Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning.  This research focuses on combining forms of Homomorphic Encryption with Machine Learning to provide needed security and confidentiality. Joseph's most recent publications include work on medical image diagnostics using post-quantum cryptography and topics such as hardware acceleration for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Master's Students:

  • Mohamed Khattab (2025-Present)
  • Mohamed Eshanul (Joining Fall 2026)
  • Joyce Adeyi (Joining Fall 2026)
  • Errol DaRocha ( Joining Fall 2026)

Honours Students :

  • Rosemary (joining Fall 2026)
  • Shekin Davis (joining Fall 2026)

Research Assistants :

Rosemary (Honours Summer Research Assistant, Summer 2026)

Rosemary Etu-Efeotor is a fourth-year Computer Science student at Acadia University. This summer, she is conducting research on improving early Alzheimer's disease detection using explainable AI and convolutional neural networks applied to MRI data. Her work focuses on developing accurate and transparent AI tools to support healthcare decision-making.

Chhavi Chhavi (Summer Research Assistant, Summer 2026)

Chhavi is a third-year Computer Science student at Acadia University. In her role as a research assistant, she assists data scientists with ongoing projects and supports the team through various administrative and organizational tasks. She has a growing interest in data analytics and machine learning, and enjoys exploring how these fields can be applied to solve practical, real-world challenges.

Anna Benoit ( Summer Research Assistant, Summer 2026)

Anna is a recent graduate of Acadia University, having completed a Bachelor of Applied Computer Science with a major in Mathematics and Statistics. She is an incoming student in the Master of Library and Information Science program at the University of Western Ontario. In her role as a research assistant, she helps data scientists with ongoing projects and completes administrative tasks.

Yassine Ezzaouia (Mitacs Globalink Research Intern)

Mohamed Yassine Ezzaouia is a final-year Data Science Engineering student at the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia.
He has been accepted into the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship 2026 at Acadia University, Canada. His research focuses on privacy-preserving machine learning for healthcare, particularly using Differential Privacy and Homomorphic Encryption. Through his project, he will study the trade-off between protecting sensitive patient data and maintaining strong model performance. He is passionate about developing trustworthy, ethical, and privacy-aware AI systems for real-world healthcare applications.

Ahmed Sabbeh (Mitacs Globalink Research Intern)

Ahmad Sabbeh is a Tunisian Statistics and Data Science Engineering student at ESSAI, graduating in 2026. He is currently a Mitacs Globalink Research Intern at Acadia University, where he works on privacy-preserving machine learning (PPML) for medical image analysis. His research focuses on federated learning, particularly challenges related to non-IID data, communication efficiency, and privacy-preserving collaborative learning in healthcare. His interests include machine learning, deep learning, knowledge distillation, trustworthy and explainable AI, and the application of AI to high-stakes domains.