PROFESSOR
Prof. Zakaria Abou El Houda
zakaria.abouelhouda@inrs.ca
Zakaria Abou El Houda is a Professor at the Energy, Materials, and Telecommunications Center of the National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS-EMT), Canada. He is the founding director of the Resilient Cybersecurity Laboratory (RSEC) and a member of the INRS-UQO Joint Research Unit in Cybersecurity.
Dr. Abou El Houda has been contributing to significant research projects that apply machine learning techniques to intrusion detection systems (IDS), with a focus on improving their explainability and robustness. His research addresses critical challenges in the security of next-generation networks, including 5G and beyond, by developing resilient mechanisms to mitigate emerging threats.
Dr. Abou El Houda’s work has been published in leading scientific journals, and he is an active participant in international conferences and collaborative research initiatives that shape the future of secure, intelligent, and adaptive network systems.
Research Interests:
- Network Security
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Secure and Resilient Next generation networks (B6G)
- Applied Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity
- Secure and Explainable Artificial Intelligence
- Network Orchestration and Automation (SDN/NFV)
- Secure and Frugal Edge Intelligence
- Blockchain and its applications
- Quantum Computing
NSERC Subject Codes
- 2508 Communications Networks
- 2700 Information Technology
- 2525 Wireless communication systems
- 2604 Intelligent systems applications
- 2800 Artificial Intelligence
PhD Students

Ines Guerziz
PhD Student
Research interests: Wireless Communication, Generative AI, Cybersecurity.

Abderrahman Elhajjout
PhD Student
Research interests: Machine Learning, Generative AI, Large Language Models.

Ali Mehrban
PhD student ( Incoming)
Research interests: Machine Learning, O-RAN, 6G Networks

Aymene Selamnia
Visiting PhD student
Research interests: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Machine learning, Quantum Machine learning.

Adam Kadi
Visiting PhD student
Research interests: DDoS attacks, Machine learning, Quantum Machine learning.
Master Students
Interns

Maroua Cherifi
Intern
Research interests: Machine learning, Federated Learning, Healthcare.
Alumnis
- PhD
- H. Amari, Smart models for security enhancement in the internet of vehicles (co-supervised with Prof. Khoukhi), 2023.
- Master
- M. Bernoussi, Blockchain integration with the Internet of things, 2023.
- A. Idelhaj, Leveraging Large Language Models to enhance Network Attack Detection in IoT environments, 2024.