In the SIRIUS Lab we secure competitive funding to advance research in human centred security and privacy. Below is an overview of our funded projects since 2020. Project team members that are or used to be in the SIRIUS Lab during the project, are highlighted in bold.
VR-CLiCS: Child Local Clinics for Safety in Virtual Environments (REPHRAIN)
Duration: Dec 2025 – Feb 2026
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI, 100% ownership), Shaun Macdonald (PDRA), Cristina Fiani (PDRA)
Funder: REPHRAIN National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online
Funding: £29,534
Project website: https://www.rephrain.ac.uk/vr-clics/
Developing and piloting “VR-CLiCS” — Child Local Clinics for Safety — to support child safety in virtual environments through community-engaged, evidence-based harm reduction approaches.
EVERESTS: Empowering Vulnerable Populations’ Resilience in Trustworthy Safe Spaces (SPRITE+)
Duration: Nov 2025 – Feb 2026
Team: Abir Awad (PI), Edward Apeh (Co-I), Mohamed Khamis (Co-I), Shaun Macdonald (PDRA)
Funder: Security, Privacy, Identity, Trust, Engagement NetworkPlus (SPRITE+)
Funding: £31,998 (University of Glasgow share: £21,855)
Project website: https://www.spritehub.org/sandpit-5/empowering-vulnerable-populations-resilience-in-trustworthy-safe-spaces
Building capacity for resilience among vulnerable groups by creating trustworthy, safe spaces.
SafeScreen: Monitor Detection in Camera View (FCDO)
Duration: Aug 2023 – Jan 2024
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), John Williamson (Co‑I), Md Shafiqul Islam (PDRA), Shaun Macdonald (PDRA), Andras Bodrogai (Research Software Engineer)
Funder: UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office
Funding: £76,375
Developing methods to detect and mitigate screen‑based risks in camera data.
MetaSafeChild: Assessing Child Safety in the Metaverse and Developing Safety‑Enhancing Technologies (REPHRAIN)
Duration: Aug 2023 – Feb 2024
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), Mark McGill (Co-I), Mathieu Chollet (Co-I), Shaun Macdonald (PDRA), Cristina Fiani (PhD student)
Funder: REPHRAIN National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online.
Funding: £79,878
Project website: https://www.rephrain.ac.uk/metasafechild/
Investigating child safety in immersive environments and designing safeguards.
Toolkit for Identification and Mitigation of XR Dark Patterns (Meta Labs)
Duration: Mar 2023 – Apr 2024
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), Mark McGill (Co-I), Pejman Saeghe (PDRA and Research co-I)
Funder: Meta Reality Labs
Funding: $75,000 (£66,619.88)
Creating tools to identify and counteract manipulative design patterns in extended reality.
ALIVE: Avatar Learning Impact Assessment for Virtual Environments (Innovate UK)
Duration: Jan 2022 – Mar 2022
Lead: Edify (industry PI)
Team members from the SIRIUS Lab: Mohamed Khamis (Collaborator and consultant)
Funder: Innovate UK
Funding: £40,000 (University of Glasgow share: £1,637)
Evaluating the learning impact of avatars in virtual environments.
ARTEMISVR: Annotating Recorded Telemetry for Extracting Meaning and Insight from Scenarios in Virtual Reality (Innovate UK)
Duration: Jan 2022 – Mar 2022
Lead: Emteq Ltd (industry PI)
Team members from the SIRIUS Lab: Mohamed Khamis (Consultant)
Funder: Innovate UK
Funding: £40,000 (University of Glasgow share: £2,500)
Developing techniques to interpret telemetry data in VR training scenarios.
There is More to Gaze Data than Fixations and Saccades (Royal Society of Edinburgh)
Duration: Mar 2022 – Aug 2022
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), Yasmeen Abdrabou (Visiting PhD student)
Funder: Royal Society of Edinburgh
Funding: £12,535
Exploring richer metrics from eye‑tracking data beyond traditional fixations and saccades.
PriXR: Protecting XR User and Bystander Privacy (REPHRAIN)
Duration: Jan 2022 – Nov 2022
Team: Mark McGill (PI), Mohamed Khamis (Co-I)
Funder: REPHRAIN National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online.
Funding: £79,997
Project website: https://rephrain.ac.uk/PRIXR/
Safeguarding privacy for users and bystanders in extended reality.
PT.HEAT: Preventing Thermal Attacks (PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity)
Duration: Nov 2021 – Apr 2023
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), Md Shafiqul Islam (PDRA), Shaun Macdonald (PDRA)
Partners: Scottish Business Resilience Centre
Funder: PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity
Funding: £177,075
Project website: https://www.gla.ac.uk/thermalimagingattacks/
Developing countermeasures against thermal imaging attacks on input devices.
Facilitating Parental Insight and Moderation for Safe Social VR (Facebook Reality Labs)
Duration: Jan 2022 – Feb 2023
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), Mark McGill (Co-I), Pejman Saeghe (PDRA)
Funder: Meta Reality Labs
Funding: $75,000 (£53,153)
Providing tools for parents to understand and moderate children’s activities in social VR.
Emergence of Cybersecurity Capability across Critical National Infrastructure (NCSC)
Duration: Apr 2021 – Mar 2022
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), Tania Wallis (Research co-I and PDRA), Chris Johnson (Co-I)
Funder: National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC)
Funding: £140,731 (University of Glasgow share: £133,659)
Assessing and strengthening cybersecurity capacities within critical infrastructure.
TAPS: Assessing, Mitigating and Raising Awareness of the Security and Privacy Risks of Thermal Imaging (EPSRC)
Duration: Apr 2021 – Mar 2023
Role: Principal Investigator
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI), Karola Marky (PDRA), Shaun Macdonald (PDRA)
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Partners: Logitech International; CENSIS
Funding: £262,119
Project website: https://www.gla.ac.uk/thermalimagingattacks/
Researching risks associated with thermal imaging and designing mitigation strategies.
Understanding and Mitigating the Security Risks of Thermal Imaging (Royal Society of Edinburgh)
Duration: Mar 2020 – Nov 2021
Team: Mohamed Khamis (PI)
Funder: Royal Society of Edinburgh
Funding: £65,616
Project website: https://www.gla.ac.uk/thermalimagingattacks/
Examining security threats posed by thermal imaging and exploring protective measures.
Other peer‑reviewed grants
Rewards for Excellence (University of Glasgow, Feb 2021) – £7,500.
John Robertson Bequest research grant (University of Glasgow, Mar 2019) – £1,500.
Google IoT Technology Research Pilot Award (Mar 2016) – IoT hardware (~$300).