Roberto Di Pietro

Roberto Di Pietro (Fellow, IEEE; Distinguished Scientist, ACM; Member Academia Europaea) is a Full Professor in Computer Science with the KAUST-CEMSE, KSA. Previously, he was Professor in Cybersecurity and founder of the CRI-Lab at HBKU-CES, Doha-Qatar.
He also served as Global Head for Security Research for Nokia Bell Labs.
He has been working in the cybersecurity field for more than 25 years, leading technology-oriented and research-focused teams in the private sector, government, and academia (MoD, United Nations HQ, EUROJUST, IAEA, and WIPO).
Besides being involved in M&A of startups—and having founded one (exited)—he is a board member of a few research institutions.
In 2011–2012, he was the recipient of a Chair of Excellence from the University Carlos III, Madrid. In 2020, he was the recipient of the
Jean-Claude Laprie Award for significantly influencing the theory and practice of Dependable Computing. In 2022 he was awarded the
Individual Innovation Award from HBKU.
His education accounts for an M.S. in Computer Science (’94) and an M.S. in informatics (’03), a Post-MS Specialization Diploma in Operations Research and Strategic Decisions (’03), and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science (’04).