ABQ Times

Muhammad Danish, a senior in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico, has received an honorable mention for the Computer Research Association (CRA) 2024-2025 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. The award highlights undergraduate students from North American colleges and universities who demonstrate exceptional research potential in computing.

Danish was chosen from hundreds of nominations submitted by faculty nationwide for his work in cybersecurity research. His research focuses on web cybersecurity and is conducted at the BeyondDefense Lab under Afsah Anwar, an assistant professor in the department. Danish's projects include studying scams and frauds on public online forms hosted by companies like Microsoft, Google, and SurveyMonkey. He also examined risks associated with using public SMS gateways for sending messages containing URLs.

“I am truly honored and humbled to be acknowledged by the Computing Research Association among undergraduate students across North America for showing outstanding potential in an area of computing research,” Danish stated. “Coming from a rural area in Northern Pakistan, where research and technology opportunities are scarce, this award serves as a significant motivational boost."

The CRA award is supported by Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It is recognized as a prestigious acknowledgment of young researchers' future contributions to computing.

“Your potential as a computing researcher is clear, and we are excited to see the contributions you’ll make to the field in the future," noted an announcement from the award selection committee.

Danish credits his success to his mentors and teammates' support. After graduating, he aims to pursue a Ph.D. in Cybersecurity with hopes of becoming a research scientist in industry focused on enhancing internet safety.