Ten-year-old Dr. Fatemeh Riahi was fascinated when her older brother brought home a computer. She enjoyed playing around with it, and was surprised when he told her that, behind the casing, the computer was running on math.
“He knew I was interested in math!” she says.
Fast forward some years, and she decided to study computer engineering, eventually completing a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Now she’s about to start teaching data science and cybersecurity in the new Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Applied Computing.
Why your toaster might be a cyber threat
In her research and in industry, Fatemeh’s work focused on securing devices spread throughout modern homes, from smart TVs to toasters.
“Our homes are filled with devices connected to the internet – Internet of Things or IoT devices,” says Fatemeh. “But each of these devices has the potential to be hacked into.”
Having your toaster hacked into may sound minor. But if your toaster can access private or financial information – like when you are home or on vacation, or your credit card data – the impact could be severe.
“It doesn’t need to be the toaster that has the information,” explains Fatemeh. “Because it’s connected to so many other devices in your home, car, or even workplace, it may have access to a wide range of sensitive information.”
Fatemeh’s work involves complex concepts like anomaly detection, exception mining, and time series analysis. But they all aim to help detect and combat the potential for fraud by identifying unusual behaviour.
“I work on automated systems that can monitor these common devices – security camera, thermostat, fridge – and identify if they start behaving differently,” says Fatemeh. “Once flagged, those devices can be further investigated or isolated from the others to block any chance of harm.”
The work is fascinating, complex, and important, and has also led to patents.
Closing the gap between education and industry
As lead data scientist at Infoblox, Fatemeh found herself really enjoying helping junior staff, breaking things down for them and nurturing their progress.
“I got into offering training sessions for Artificial Intelligence (AI),” she says. “A lot of people were looking for ways to get into it.” She discovered that she loved teaching and working with younger people.
Additionally, she saw a need to make the transition from education to industry more seamless.
“I actually felt unprepared to join the workforce after my education, and I wished the courses had been more tailored to industry needs.”
She had noticed that her BCIT-trained colleagues were typically more industry-ready. That’s what led her to apply to teach at BCIT Computing.
“What I like about BCIT is that BCIT knows what industry wants,” says Fatemeh. “We collaborate with industry, and will be strengthening these connections through our MSc grads.”
AI as assistant
Fatemeh is not only using AI in her research.
“In teaching, I can ask ChatGPT about topics I’m introducing to students, specify their level, and ask for suggestions on what students will need to learn about,” she explains. “And I can design assignments so students can use ChatGPT for it, but they won’t be able to use it to solve the whole thing.”
She says this approach enables students to bring pieces together, solve problems, and think things through. “I think this mimics what they’ll do in the real world as well.”
“I try to use AI as an assistant to accelerate my own work,” she elaborates. “AI can help with defined, repetitive tasks.”
Fatemeh notes that while AI is transforming work in many ways, AI cannot build a secure, scalable system. It lacks the uniquely human judgement that we might take for granted.
“So we can equip students with skill sets that can’t be replaced by AI,” she says. “The human must be in control, and there are a lot of things AI can’t do.”
Masters-level depth: From computer professional to researcher
In the graduate program, Fatemeh looks forward to helping students who are skilled computer professionals learn to become effective researchers.
“The courses are designed for students to do the heavy lifting,” she emphasizes. “We’re presenting ambiguous problems, unlike the kind of curriculum offered in a degree.”
“The students have to figure out if the applied computing problem presented has been solved before, or if they can draw on a problem-solving approach used for a similar challenge. Or maybe they will be looking for existing solutions to part of a problem that they can build on.”
Fatemeh emphasizes that the ability to do research is crucial. “They need to learn to identify, select, and read relevant research papers – this is something chatGPT does not do well.”
“We’ll be learning how to find and work with data, how to build an end-to-end system in industry, from problem to solution, that can be implemented and scaled,” she explains. Machine Learning – a subset of AI – has important potential applications across industries.
“I’m excited about where the students might go with their work – there are so many real-world problems that can be addressed with the help of these tools and techniques.”
The deadline to apply to the new BCIT Master of Science in Applied Computing is July 31.
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