Rate My Professor Ghassan Saba

Dr. Ghassan Saba is a Professor, Research Director, and Vice President in the Faculty of Informatics and Communication Engineering at Yarmouk Private University. He teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in data communication, networking, information security, operating systems, and distributed systems. Saba earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science specializing in internetworking from the University of Nancy II and INPL in 1996 with a thesis on 'Multipoint protocols and FIP networks interconnection'; DEA in Computer Science from the same institutions in 1991; DES in Computer Science from HIAST in 1990; and Engineering diploma in Computer Science from HIAST in 1989. His academic appointments include professor at HIAST (2012-2014) teaching various networking courses, assistant professor at Damascus University (2003-2007) in networking and modeling, tutor at Syrian Virtual University (2008-2020), Head of Communication Systems and Networking Department at ARAEB (2017-2019), Associate Head of Computer Sciences Department for research at HIAST (2010-2017), and Head of Operating Systems and Networking Laboratory at HIAST (2008-2016). In public service, he served as Deputy Minister of Communications and Technology (2019-2021), CEO of the third mobile operator Wafa Telecom (2022-2023), head of the e-government team (2019), executive head for the national IPv6 transition plan, chairman of the Personal Data Protection Law drafting committee, and member of the Syrian digital transformation strategy committee.

Saba's research focuses on data communication, networking, information security, operating systems, and distributed systems. He has supervised Ph.D. theses such as 'Developing new techniques for port-knocking firewalls,' 'Energy efficiency in WSN,' and 'Security methods in Software Defined Networks' at Damascus University, along with multiple master's theses on ad-hoc networks, MPLS protection, WSN QoS, SDN applications, and FTTX impacts. Notable publications include 'A new approach for detecting violation of data plane integrity in Software Defined Networks' (Journal of Computer Security, 2021), 'A Survey of Software Defined Networking' and 'Interconnection between SDN Adhoc Controllers' (Arab Journal for Scientific Publishing, 2020), 'Some solutions for FIP Network Interconnection' (WFCS 1995), and 'An Approximate Solution to Minimal-cost Shortest Path Multipoint Routing Problem' (PROMS 1995). He authored books 'Computer Networks' (2007), 'Network Security,' 'Introduction to Routing,' 'Network Services' (2016) published by Syrian Virtual University, and contributed to 'Essentials in Informatics Engineering' (2019). Saba participated in EU projects including ERA-MEDANET2, EUMEDGRID, EUMEDGRID-SUPPORT, and EUMED-CONNECT2 through HIAST teams and serves on Syria's Higher Association of Academic Research committee for communication priorities.