Open to Opportunities

Expected thesis defense in early 2026. Open to research collaborations and faculty positions.

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About Me

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oulu, working under the supervision of Dr. Panos Kostakos and Dr. Lauri Loven. My research focuses on the intersection of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, with specific expertise in Federated Learning, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), and Threat Intelligence.

My work contributes to securing critical infrastructure and modern networks (5G/6G) by developing decentralized, privacy-preserving security mechanisms.

Federated Learning Intrusion Detection Explainable AI 5G/6G Security Privacy-Preserving ML

Education

Dec 2021 – Present

Doctor of Science (Tech) in Computer Science & Engineering

University of Oulu, Finland

Focus: Cybersecurity, Federated Learning, and Intrusion Detection Systems. Expected defense: Early 2026.

2014 – 2017

Master of Science in Software Engineering

2012 – 2014

Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering

Selected Publications

2025

FedDTKG: Federated Temporal Graph Learning with Adaptive Loss for Robust 5G Attack Detection

S. Sheikhi, L. Loven, S. Pirttikangas, P. Kostakos

MSWiM 2025 · Accepted

Bridging Theory and Practice: Addressing Current Cybersecurity Gaps in Industry 5.0

S. Sheikhi, M. Eceiza, C. Arellano, et al.

IEEE Access

Optimized Contrastive Transformer Models for Self-Supervised 5G Network Intrusion Detection

S. Sheikhi, P. Kostakos, S. Pirttikangas, L. Loven

GACLM 2025 · Accepted

Federated Variational Autoencoders for Unsupervised Anomaly Detection in Distributed 5G Networks

S. Sheikhi, A. Ghaffari, L. Loven

SoftCOM 2025 · Accepted

Research Projects

H2020 IDUNN: Cognitive Detection for Operational Technologies

EU H2020
Role: Researcher & Developer PM: Dr. Susanna Pirttikangas

Developed a cloud-native, microservices-based architecture for anomaly detection in OT. Implemented Explainable AI (SHAP, LIME) for intrusion detection.

Federated Learning MLflow Kubernetes Kubeflow

H2020 NESTOR: Border Security Intelligence

EU H2020
Role: Developer

Designed an enhanced pre-frontier intelligence picture. Developed AR mapping application for HoloLens 2.

Apache Kafka HoloLens 2 AR/MR

Professional Experience

Dec 2021 – Present

Doctoral Researcher

University of Oulu, Finland
  • Leading research on federated learning algorithms for cyber threat detection
  • Developed lab infrastructure including cyber ranges for attack simulation
  • Supervising Master's and Bachelor's thesis students
2014 – 2018

Senior Software Engineer & Web Developer

Hadid Entezar Industrial Company, Tehran
  • Architected and deployed custom CRM systems
  • Led full-stack development projects

Technical Skills

AI & Cybersecurity

Federated Learning Intrusion Detection TensorFlow PyTorch SHAP/LIME Graph Neural Networks

Development & DevOps

Python C++ Docker Kubernetes Kafka MLflow

Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant, Internet of Things (IoT)

University of Oulu · Fall 2024

Teaching Assistant, Applied Computer Projects

University of Oulu · Spring 2024

Teaching Assistant, Cybersecurity I: Ethical Hacking

University of Oulu · Fall 2023