Education

• University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign (UIUC)
  PhD in Information Science (Aug 2022–Present), CGPA 4.00
• University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)
  Master in Computer Science (Transfer to PhD UIUC) (Aug 2020–May 2022), CGPA 4.00
• Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)
  Bachelor in Computer Science (Aug 2016–May 2020)

Professional Experience

• University of Illinois — Ph.D. Research Assistant (Dec 2020–present, IL, USA)
  Conducting security and privacy analyses of health technologies, including mobile, web, and IoT systems.
• Discovery Partner Institute — Graduate Research Intern (June 2024–Dec 2024, Chicago IL)
  Multi-language privacy policies comparison; developed a pipeline for collecting and analyzing 2,400+ privacy policies.
• ByteDance/TikTok Inc. — PhD Research Intern (May–Aug 2022, Chicago IL)
  Improved security and performance of sensitive applications using Intel SGX and Hashicorp Vault.

Research Papers

• Conference Papers:
  • Designing for Transparency: A Multilingual Analysis of Privacy Policy Usability and Compliance in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Contexts. International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2025.
  • Listening to Users: Privacy and Security in Mobile Health Apps. International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 2025.
  • Unveiling Privacy Measures in Mental Health Applications. ACM UbiComp/ISWC MHSI 2023.
  • Evaluating User Behavior in Smartphone Security: A Psychometric Perspective. SOUPS 2023.
  • An Exploratory Study of Malicious Link Posting on Social Media Applications. USEC 2023.
• Poster: Multilingual Compliance: A Comparative Study of Privacy Policies in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. NeurIPS 2024 Workshop.
• Under Submission: Privacy and Security in FemTech Apps (Title Changed for Anonymity).
• Preprints: Decoding User Concerns in AI Health Chatbots; Towards Characterizing COVID-19 Awareness on Twitter (Dataset Paper).

Notable Research Projects

• Health Technologies:
  • Usable Security and Privacy of IoMT devices
  • Characterizing the Security and Privacy Behavior of Mobile Health Applications
  • Security and Privacy Challenges of IoMT Ecosystem
  • Security and Privacy Discourse in Online Development Communities
• Other Security and Privacy Research:
  • Secret Management using Zero-Trust
  • Fingerprinting and Tracking via Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Teaching Experience

• PhD Teaching Assistant @ UIUC (Aug 2022–Dec 2024)
  Assisted with Privacy and Information Technology, System Infrastructure Design, and HCI classes.
• PhD Teaching Assistant @ UIC (Jan 2021–May 2022)
  Lab instructor for Data Structures, conducted mock coding interviews, and graded coursework.

Technical Skills

• Programming Languages: C/C++, Python, Java, JavaScript, MATLAB
• Data Analysis & Visualization: R, Excel, Tableau, Power BI
• Security: Pen Testing, Wireshark, Reverse Engineering, Linux, Intel SGX, Hashicorp Vault, Networking
• Technical: Docker, Firebase, Git, REST APIs, Adobe XD, HTML5 & CSS

References

• Prof. Masooda Bashir, PhD
  University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
  Phone: +1 (217) 621-2164
  Email: mnb@illinois.edu