Sara Obead - ECE PhD Student of the Month - May 2022
Sarah Obead is a soon-to-be-hooded Ph.D. from the Helen and John C. Hartmann Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Ms. Obead worked under the advisement of Professor Joerg Kliewer and has successfully defended her dissertation on April 27, 2022. She also completed her M.Sc. in Telecommunications from NJIT in 2016.
She is a research assistant and a member of the Elisha Yegal Bar-Ness Center for Wireless Information Processing (CWiP) at NJIT. Her research interests include information and coding theories with focus on information-theoretic privacy, private information retrieval, and private computation.
Ms. Obead has published several research articles in Q1 journals such as IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), and conferences such as IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT). She serves as a reviewer for different journals and conferences including IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on Communications, etc.
What attracted you to NJIT?
What initially brought me to NJIT was the master’s program in telecommunications. When I was looking for a master’s program in computer networks and communications, I was focused on the diversity of the offered courses, the international students on campus and the faculty members. I found that at NJIT.
It was at the beginning of the master’s study when I decided to pursue a PhD degree at NJIT. During my master’s study, I had the chance to meet the faculty in person and learn about their research interests up close. Particularly, there were two posters in the ECE department outlining the faculty research areas and the most cited research articles. I was deeply impressed by the research expertise of the faculty of the ECE department and the focus of NJIT on incubating and nurturing quality research. As a result, I set my goal on being a member of the PhD program and towards that goal, I did a master thesis under the supervision of Dr. Joerg Kliewer who became my PhD advisor as well.
What do you think would be an impactful move in your research area?
The rapid development of communication and computing technologies brought supercomputing capabilities within reach of users through cloud computing paradigms. With this widespread use of cloud computing many major concerns has risen regarding the data and computation privacy.
Information-theoretic privacy provide solutions against the capabilities of infinite computational powers. Thus, many privacy problems are being revisited by information-theorists to find such powerful solutions. One of these problems is the private retrieval of information (PIR). This problem and its generalization, private function computations, have gained the attention of computer science, coding theory, and information theory communities due to its intimate connection to a verity of interdisciplinary problems. However, one major obstacle facing practical solutions of private computation is enabling Homomorphic computation of nonlinear functions. Homomorphic computation is a form of computation that permits users to perform computations on encoded data without first decoding it. The current coded computation solutions impose high computation and communication costs, thus, introducing homomorphic computation for nonlinear functions will open doors for practical solutions not only for private computation problems but for many other interdisciplinary problems and applications in computer science including machine learning models.
What are some of the most mesmerizing moments during your time in the ECE Department and at NJIT?
There are many mesmerizing moments during my time in the ECE department and at NJIT.
I have enjoyed all my time at NJIT and being part of the ECE family. The ECE department is constantly striving to offer students opportunities to get involved in academic activities. All seminars that where organized by the ECE department have been valuable opportunities to learn from skillful researchers, current, and prospective faculty members about the latest work in different research area which broaden my perspective. One of the most recent memorable moments during my time in the ECE department was when I participated in the three-minute ECE PhD stories contest in Fall 2021 and was awarded second place for best presentation.
Where do you (hope to) see yourself in five years?
In five years, I see myself as a faculty member in a research-oriented university. I have always enjoyed helping others, teaching and problem solving and for that, I believe I fit in academia. Towards that goal, I will be starting a post-doc position after leaving NJIT. During my post-doc training, I am hoping to gain the research and advising skills that will prepare me to start my journey as a faculty member.
Many if not most PhD's have faced great challenges in their studies in one way or another that made them consider quitting. What powers/factors have helped you overcome the greatest challenge(s) you encountered during your PhD study?
As a PhD student, and particularly an international PhD student, one can face an immense amount of stress and pressure to succeed. The first factor that kept me going is the emotional support of my family from overseas. I am the first member in my family to pursue a PhD degree. I saw the pride of my parents and siblings in my strength facing all the challenges that came hand in hand with being an international PhD student from a country that is shattered by conflicts. My parents believed in my ability to succeed beyond any doubts and that gave me the confidence I needed when it all felt too much to handle.
Another factor that kept me academically motivated, was presenting my work in conferences. It was very difficult for me to travel outside the states to attend conferences and even to visit home, but I was able to attend several conferences within the US with the support of my PhD advisor. Being in such a research focused environment, networking with other PhD students and researchers from different parts of the world who have all come to enthusiastically present the best of their work, was the boost that I needed in my down times. I have also seen the success of my advisor, Dr. Kliewer, in the prestigious community of Information theory and that facilitated fruitful research collaborations. Finally, the members of the IEEE Information Theory Society that coordinated the conferences were very encouraging of female researchers in an effort to diversify the community. As a result, following every conference, I would come back to the CWiP lab ready to push harder and take my work to a higher level.
Finally, the ECE department chair, faculty, and staff members provided a friendly and welcoming environment. Beside my colleagues, I have found empathy and encouragement from faculty and staff alike. I believe that a welcoming environment is a contributing factor to overcome many emotionally draining hardship especially for international students who are not able to be with family and friends in difficult times.