PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi

Also known as Ahmad Reza-Sadeghi, Ahmad‐Reza Sadeghi

Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi is a computer security researcher whose work connects hardware security and artificial intelligence. He completed a cryptography doctorate at Saarland University and received the Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize in 2008. He built a long-term research partnership with Intel, established a Huawei security lab, and coauthored machine-learning-based hardware-fuzzing papers. As of October 2026, he is a professor of computer science at TU Darmstadt and heads the System Security Lab; his team works on software that distinguishes real voices from AI-generated voices.

Works
644
Citations
26,291
h-index
82
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. By 2008

    A doctorate and a prize

    Before academia, he completes a computer science doctorate focused on cryptography at Saarland University and works in telecommunications research and development, including Ericsson. In 2008, he receives the Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize for research in information and computer security, especially hardware-assisted security.

  2. Since 2012

    Research on private AI

    Since 2012, he builds a long-term Intel collaboration across secure mobile and embedded systems, autonomous and resilient systems, and private AI.

  3. 2018

    An ACM SIGSAC award

    In 2018, ACM SIGSAC gives him its Outstanding Contributions Award for research, education, leadership in the security community, and work in content protection, mobile security, and hardware-assisted security.

  4. 2019

    A lab with Huawei

    He establishes the Open Lab for Sustainable Security and Safety (OpenS3 Lab) with Huawei in 2019.

  5. 2022

    An ERC grant for HYDRANOS

    In 2022, he receives an ERC Advanced Grant for HYDRANOS, which uses adaptable hardware components to protect against unknown attacks.

  6. 2024–2025

    Learning to fuzz hardware

    In 2024, he coauthors Beyond Random Inputs: A Novel ML-Based Hardware Fuzzing. In 2025, he coauthors GenHuzz, which uses a language model to generate RISC-V assembly and hardware-guided reinforcement learning to uncover processor vulnerabilities.

  7. June 2026

    MIRAGE for chip design

    In June 2026, he receives an ERC Proof-of-Concept Grant for MIRAGE. The project aims to generate functionally equivalent RTL code variants that AI systems find harder to identify and replicate, protecting valuable chip designs during exchange.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor at TU Darmstadt

    As of October 2026, he is a professor of computer science at TU Darmstadt and heads its System Security Lab. His team develops software to distinguish real voices from AI-generated voices.

A language model matched the links in this timeline to people, organizations and papers (provisional, model-judged).

Career

  1. Since 2010TU DarmstadtProfessor of Computer Science
  2. 2020–2023EPFL
  3. From 2019Open Lab for Sustainable Security and Safety (OpenS3 Lab)Founder
  4. 2011–2015National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity ATHENE
  5. 2010–2013Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
  6. 2003–2013Ruhr University Bochum

Education

  1. Saarland UniversityComputer science doctorate

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Security and privacy challenges in industrial internet of things2015 · ACM IEEE Design Automation Conference · 941 citations
  2. IoT SENTINEL: Automated Device-Type Identification for Security Enforcement in IoT2017 · IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) · 703 citations
  3. DÏoT: A Federated Self-learning Anomaly Detection System for IoT2019 · IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) · 658 citations
  4. Return-oriented programming without returns2010 · Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security · 534 citationsWith Hovav Shacham
  5. Just-In-Time Code Reuse: On the Effectiveness of Fine-Grained Address Space Layout Randomization2013 · IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy · 512 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 18 October 2026.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes TU Darmstadt. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 33%Includes TU Darmstadt. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 33% in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes TU Darmstadt. Our estimates of combined and median h-index at AI organizations, using current affiliations and OpenAlex records.
  4. The median h-index is 55 at universities and 20 at frontier AI labsIncludes EPFL. The median h-index is 55 at universities and 20 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, citations and moves to estimate how universities and frontier labs contribute to AI research.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi – System Security Lab – TU Darmstadt informatik.tu-darmstadt.de. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. Making Chip Designs Invisible to AI tu-darmstadt.de. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. Hardware-assisted Adaptive Cross-Layer Security for Computing Systems | HYDRANOS | Project | Results | HORIZON | CORDIS | European Commission cordis.europa.eu. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. GenHuzz: An Efficient Generative Hardware Fuzzer | USENIX usenix.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. Medienschau: Professor Sadeghi über Stimm-Deepfakes – TU Darmstadt tu-darmstadt.de. Checked 18 October 2026.