Alesia Chernikova

Postdoctoral Research Associate
Network Science Institute
Northeastern University
Email : chernikova.a@northeastern.edu
CV [Updated May 2024]

Hi, I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with President Joseph E. Aoun Professor Tina Eliassi-Rad in the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University. My research focuses on trustworthy network science and the cybersecurity of GenAI ecosystems.

I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science at Northeastern University, where I was advised by Dr. Alina Oprea. I was affiliated with the NDS2 lab and was a part of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute. During my doctoral years, my research interests were in the intersection of deep learning, network science, and cybersecurity, starting on the level of cybernetwork resilience against adversarial behavior and going to the level of evasive behavior against machine learning models in critical environments. Therefore, I was interested in the mathematical modeling of self-propagating malware with a rigorous assessment of its essential characteristics and proactive methods for network resilience against it. Another research area that fascinated me was adversarial machine learning, where I studied the effect of adversarial attacks against deep neural networks in cybersecurity and self-driving cars domains.

Before joining Northeastern, I received my BS degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Belarusian State University, where I was affiliated with the Mathematical Modeling and Data Analysis Department under the supervision of Dr. Vladimir Malugin . My research focus included the design of hedging algorithms based on derivative contracts. Additionally, I was a part of the Research Institute of Applied Mathematics and Information Technology Problems, where I participated in the project for credit rankings estimation and evaluation of national enterprises using mathematical, statistical, and econometric methods and models.

My other interests include hiking and yoga, film photography and visual art, music and soundscapes.

Publications

• Modeling Self-Propagating Malware with Epidemiological Models
  Alesia Chernikova, Nicolò Gozzi, Simona Boboila, Nicola Perra, Tina Eliassi-Rad, and Alina Oprea
  Applied Network Science (ANS) 2023
• Cyber Network Resilience against Self-Propagating Malware Attacks
  Alesia Chernikova, Nicolò Gozzi, Simona Boboila, Priyanka Angadi, John Loughner, Matthew Wilden, Nicola Perra, Tina Eliassi-Rad, and Alina Oprea
  European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS) 2022
• FENCE: Feasible Evasion Attacks on Neural Netwoks in Constrained Environments
  Alesia Chernikova and Alina Oprea
  ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (ACM TOPS) 2022
• Are Self-Driving Cars Secure? Evasion Attacks against Deep Neural Networks for Steering Angle Prediction
  Alesia Chernikova, Alina Oprea, Cristina Nita-Rotaru and Baekgyu Kim
  IEEE Workshop on the Internet of Safe Things collocated with IEEE S&P 2019
• Hedging Algorithms Based on Interest-rate Swaps
  Alesia Chernikova and Vladimir Malugin
  In the 70th undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students scientific conference of Belarusian State University (vol. 1, pp. 242 – 245)