Domhnall Carlin

Domhnall Carlin is an EPSRC Research Software Engineering Fellow (2020) at Queen's University Belfast's School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His fellowship focuses on establishing Research Software Engineering (RSE) as a career pathway within academia while developing software-based security mitigations for IoT devices through interdisciplinary collaboration with University College London.

Dr. Carlin completed his PhD in 2018 with the thesis "Dynamic analyses of malware," supervised by Prof. Sakir Sezer and Dr. Philip O'Kane. His doctoral research pioneered dynamic opcode analysis techniques for malware detection, forming the foundation for his current work in cybersecurity.

His research spans Cybersecurity with dual specializations in Malware Analysis (focusing on dynamic opcode/system call analysis and AI-driven detection) and IoT Security (addressing threats in connected devices and tech-abuse scenarios). He simultaneously advances Research Software Engineering through policy development, repository analysis, and promoting software sustainability in academic research.

Recent publications (2023-2025) reveal three converging trends: 1) Machine learning applications for IoT malware detection using lightweight runtime analysis, 2) Development of benchmark datasets for vulnerability research, and 3) Systematic studies of research software ecosystems across global academic repositories. His work bridges theoretical cybersecurity with practical software engineering solutions.

Key scientific recognition includes:

• EPSRC Research Software Engineer Fellowships 2020 (awarded 2021)
• Best Paper Award (2025 IEEE Computing and Communication Workshop)
• Joint Best Paper Award (2018)
• Emily Sarah Montgomery Travel Scholarship (2017)
• Postgraduate School Scholarship (2017)

Dr. Carlin actively mentors PhD candidates Adrianne Thompson (investigating IoT tech-abuse in intimate partner violence) and Carl Fitzpatrick (developing IoT threat mitigations). His primary research funding comes from the EPSRC Fellowship, which supports both his IoT security research and institutional RSE capacity-building. He maintains active collaborations with University College London on vulnerable population security projects and contributes to ACM and ReSA policy initiatives.

Through his EPSRC Fellowship, Dr. Carlin is establishing Queen's first dedicated Research Software Engineering group, creating infrastructure to support software-intensive research across disciplines. His team develops open tools for malware analysis (including dynamic opcode tracing frameworks) and collaborates with cybersecurity researchers on real-world IoT threat mitigation, particularly focusing on protections for vulnerable societal groups.