First Female Emirati Director appointed to NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Cyber Security

NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has named UAE National Hoda Al Khzaimi the Director of the Center for Cyber Security.

Press Release

NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has named UAE National Hoda Al Khzaimi the Director of the Center for Cyber Security. Al Khzaimi comes to this role having held several posts in research and development in the cyber security and cryptology fields over the past ten years.

Al Khzaimi has headed the Department of Research and Development for Cyber Security and Cryptology in numerous national initiatives in the United Arab Emirates and has served on many national and international cyber security associations.

Of her appointment Al Khzaimi said: “The NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Cyber Security is an active player in achieving interdisciplinary research in diverse areas of science and security. I look forward to working with the team of students, engineers, researchers, faculty, scientific and industrial communities, and governmental partners to build an equally interdisciplinary, sustainable, dynamic, autonomous and diverse research and development ecosystem. Our goal is to manifest a resilient security practice and add a critical value to national and international cyber security welfare in this regard. ”

Al Khzaimi obtained a PhD in Cryptanalysis from Denmark Technical University. Her research interests include space, aerospace, and UAV security. She is also working on constructing and analyzing cryptographic primitives, validating and investigating links between different cryptanalytic approaches and utilizing cryptographic primitives in different cyber security architectures such as the Internet of Things and big data analysis, amongst others.

The vision of the NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Cyber Security is to establish a world-class cyber security center by partnering with key local and international universities, industries, and governmental agencies to facilitate cyber security research, development, education, and best practices in the UAE and broader GCC region for this field. The Center acts as a catalyst to improve cyber security research and development in the UAE and enhance its regional and global competitiveness in this field.

Visit the Center for Cyber Security for more information.


About NYU Abu Dhabi

NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and research campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly selective undergraduate curriculum across the disciplines with a world center for advanced research and scholarship. The university enables its students in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, humanities, and arts to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from over 115 countries and speak over 115 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.