He earned his PhD from Carleton University in 1999 and worked in both the private and public sectors from 1998 till 2008. In 2003 he designed the Government of Canada's online account recovery solution, used by more than 6 million citizens and businesses. He returned to academia in 2008, working at Edinburgh, Masaryk and Glasgow Caledonian universities, before his move to Heriot-Watt in 2015. He is primarily interested in computer security, and in applying human-computer interaction (HCI) and machine learning (ML) techniques to solve computer security problems. He is currently investigating improved approaches to mobile device security and to network security administration.