I am PhD candidate at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, advised by Dr. Jian Liu. My research focuses on AI security, federated learning, and generative models, with a particular interest in privacy-preserving and trustworthy machine learning systems and smart healthcare. My research work has been published at top-tier mobile-computing/AI/security/bio-medical venues (e.g., IEEE S&P/Oakland, ACM AsiaCCS, ACM IJCAI, ACM UbiComp, and IEEE EMBC)

Research Interest

Robust and Trustworthy AI

  • Federated Learning
  • Differential Privacy
  • Machine Unlearning
  • Algorithmic Fairness

Responsible Content Governance

  • Creative Content Protection
  • Generative Model Auditing
  • Watermarking
  • Foundation Model Security

Smart Healthcare and Fitness

  • Intelligent Fitness Technologies
  • Multimodal Sensing
  • Passive Health Tracking
  • Early Disease Detection

Publications

Bauder, C., Wu, T., Meerza, S.I.A., Fathy, A., Liu, J. “mm-RunAssist: mmWave-based Respiratory and Running Rhythm Analysis During Treadmill Workouts.” Accepted at ACM IMWUT/UbiComp, Espoo, Finland, Oct 2025.

Wu, T., Wu, Y., Poudel, B., Meerza, S.I.A., et al. “VibRun: Real-time Unobtrusive Gait Analysis for Treadmill Running via Footstep Vibrations.” Accepted at ACM IMWUT/UbiComp, Espoo, Finland, Oct 2025.

Meerza, S.I.A., Liu, L., Zhang, J., Liu, J. “GLocalFair: Jointly Improving Global and Local Group Fairness in Federated Learning.” AAAI PPAI, Philadelphia, USA, Feb 2025.

Meerza, S.I.A., Sun, L., Liu, J. “HarmonyCloak: Making Music Audio Unlearnable for Generative AI.” IEEE S&P (Oakland), San Francisco, USA, May 2025. (Acceptance Rate: 14%)

Meerza, S.I.A., Liu, J. “EAB-FL: Exacerbating Algorithmic Bias Through Model Poisoning Attacks in Federated Learning.” IJCAI, Jeju, South Korea, Aug 2024. (Acceptance Rate: 14%)

Meerza, S.I.A., Sadovnik, A., Liu, J. “ConFUSE: Confusion-based Federated Unlearning with Salience Exploration.” IEEE ISVLSI, Knoxville, USA, July 2024.

Cui, Y., Meerza, S.I.A., et al. “RecUP-FL: Reconciling Utility and Privacy in Federated Learning via User-configurable Privacy Defense.” ACM AsiaCCS, Melbourne, Australia, July 2022. (Acceptance Rate: 16%)

Ahamed, A., Meerza, S.I.A. “Iris Recognition using Curvelet Transform and Accuracy Maximization by Particle Swarm Optimization.” IEEE WNYISPW, New York, USA, Nov 2022.

Meerza, S.I.A., et al. “Fair and Privacy-Preserving Alzheimer's Disease Diagnosis Based on Spontaneous Speech Analysis via Federated Learning.” IEEE EMBC, Glasgow, Scotland, July 2022.

Meerza, S.I.A., et al. “Precise Warfarin Management through Personalized Modeling and Control with Limited Clinical Data.” IEEE EMBC, Guadalajara, Mexico, Nov 2021.

Meerza, S.I.A., Ahmed, A. “Food Insecurity Through Machine Learning Lens: Identifying Vulnerable Households.” AAEA & WAEA Joint Meeting, Austin, Texas, Aug 2021.

Meerza, S.I.A., et al. “Q-Learning Based Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Optimal Path Planning of Swarm of Mobile Robots.” IEEE ICASERT, Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 2019.

Meerza, S.I.A., et al. “Performance Evaluation of Different Algorithms for Handwritten Isolated Bangla Character Recognition.” IEEE ICREST, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jan 2019.

Meerza, S.I.A., et al. “Optimal Path Planning Algorithm for Swarm of Robots Using Particle Swarm Optimization Technique.” IEEE ICITISEE, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Nov 2018.

Media Mentions & Highlights

The Art of Poison-Pilling Music

Benn Jordan explores our HarmonyCloak method on YouTube.

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This Will DESTROY AI Music For GOOD

Featured in Weaver Beats’s YouTube Channel.

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Pitch perfect protection

Pitch Perfect Protection

Featured on TorchBearer Magazine for protecting music from generative AI using HarmonyCloak.

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Podcast

How to Poison AI Music Scrapers

Appeared on Kaleidoscope’s Apple Podcast discussing our poisoning method for AI.

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Podcast

Protect Me!

Appeared on The Illiac Suite - Music and AI’s Apple Podcast discussing our HarmonyCloak method.

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AI Proof your music!?

Social Media Mentions of our work.

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Latest News

Awards & Grants

Awards

  • Gonzalez Family Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant, UTK EECS, 2025 — For outstanding performance as a research assistant.
  • Honorable Mention (Team), MagNet Challenge, Princeton University, NJ, 2023.
  • Chancellor’s Award and Vice‑Chancellor’s Award, AIUB Convocation, 2020 — For academic distinction and master’s research.
  • Winner (Team), Digital Innovation Fair (Khulna Division), ICT Division, Government of Bangladesh, 2015.
  • Top 20 Nomination, Young Bangla Youth Award, ICT Division, Bangladesh, 2015.
  • 1st Runner‑up (Team), Project Showcasing, Esonance, IUT, Dhaka, 2014.

Grants

  • NSF INTERN Supplement, $55,000 — Non‑Academic Research Internship for Graduate Students, 2024.
  • EERE Fellow, $10,000 — U.S. Department of Energy & UTK, 2022‑2023.
  • Tennessee’s Top 100 Fellow, $40,000 — University of Tennessee, 2021‑2025.
  • Merit Scholarship, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology, 2012‑2015.