Thesis application

Thesis Application #

  • If you

    • do not have a supervisor and
    • want us to supervise you and
    • selected one of our thesis topics or
    • have a new idea that we may show interest in

    then fill out the form below.

  • Submit your request

Thesis Application Form Template #

  • Student: John Doe - “jd@example.se”
  • Thesis degree: Master’s
  • Thesis program: Computer Science
  • University: KTH Royal Institute of Technology
  • Thesis topic: Security analysis of ABC IoT devices
  • Thesis ID: (Empty if it is your proposal)
  • Expected start of the study: 2030-01-01 (If you are flexible state how much flexible you are)
  • Expected end of the study: 2030-01-01 (If you are flexible state how much flexible you are)
  • Workload: 20 hours (How many hours per week on average you will work for this study)
  • Peer-review publication: Yes/No (If you will publish your thesis in a journal)
  • Suggested Supervisor: (Empty if you do not have supervisor)
  • Supervisor approval (for the proposal): Yes/No (No if you do not have supervisor)
  • Confirmation: I have read and understood this page. The thesis topic I applied for is suitable for my qualifications.
    • IMPORTANT: Supervisor should be holding a PhD (PhD students can be co-supervisor)
    • IMPORTANT: If you are a bachelor’s student, you can apply as a pair (2 students)

Preparing proposal #

  • Read the literature
  • Select a few of studies to replicate
  • Think of how to improve what you implemented
  • Write your proposal
  • Note that: We provide description (pre-proposal) of our researc topics
    • It is just to learn what the research is about
    • You should develop your own proposal

Interviews #

  • Applications are not evaluated immediately upon receipt
  • Evaluation begins when a sufficient number of applications for a particular thesis are collected
  • The right candidate is then selected from the group of applicants
  • Selected candidates are invited to interviews
  • Interview dates are not set in advance
  • Those selected for supervision are informed within two weeks of the interviews
  • If we are unable to supervise you (e.g. if the quota is exceeded), we can inform you of possible supervisors
  • You can then use your proposal to apply for another supervisor

Recommendations #

Quality #

  • It is strongly recommended that students apply for job postings that they have experience.
    • You are not expected to be an expert, but you are expected to be experienced
    • If you do not have experience, you can prepare yourself in a few months and then apply
    • For a vulnerability research study (i.e., IoT hacking) you need to have experience hacking an IoT device
    • For an LLM security study (i.e., Hacking with LLM) you need to have experience data sanitization (reducing token counts), fine tuning, LangChain, LangGraph, LLM assistant APIs, AI agents, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), etc.
  • Students should complete the preliminary work before the thesis work begins.
    • IMPORTANT: The proposal must include the preliminary work, for example
    • For a vulnerability research studies (i.e., ethical hacking) you need to include a complete threat model or attacks that will be performed
    • For other studies the data should be collected
  • We usually collaborate with companies in our research
    • If you develop your own porposal we also suggest you to find a company to collaborate

Publication #

  • The work you perform in our lab must be of a quality that can be published in a journal
  • Students who want to publish in a conferences/journals over others are prioritized
  • Publications are submitted to the conferences/journals that we approve

Timeline #

  • Students are strongly encouraged to begin research on the interested topic at least 6 months before the expected start of the study.
  • It is strongly recommended that students apply at least 3 months before the expected start of the study.
  • You are expected to spend at least 20 hours per week on our work during the study period. However, based on our experience, we recommend that you devote your full focus and time entirely to your thesis work.
  • We can only provide a tentative timeline for every project that is based on our experience, but the exact timeline depends on the qualifications and performance of the student.

Opportunities #

  • Some students are offered to have a seat in our laboratory
    • Students are selected based on various criteria (full-time study or publication desire)
  • Working in the lab provides a unique mentoring service (e.g., weekly meetings)
  • Help find PhD position/internship/first job