Kinan Dak Albab has been recognized for his outstanding contributions to teaching and mentorship in computer science. As a doctoral candidate in the Malte Schwarzkopf's Efficient and Trustworthy Operating Systems (ETOS) group, Dak Albab has made a significant impact on students and faculty alike through his profound dedication to going above and beyond for his students. 

His advisor highlights Dak Albab’s strong commitment to his students' understanding of complex concepts often by intuitively knowing when to interject conversations and propose thought-provoking questions, and provide an “assist” to students by explaining material in his own words or drawing an analogy when appropriate.

“As an academic, I feel a sworn duty to my students to be an effective educator, in addition to being a researcher.” says Dak Albab.

Students benefit greatly from Dak Albab's approach to teaching and often describe him as an “exceptional, compassionate, and dedicated teacher” who goes above and beyond to prioritize inclusion and engagement.

Dak Albab shares that his favorite course to teach has been Privacy-Conscious Computer Systems, a graduate seminar that looks into recent advances in computer systems that aim to provide privacy guarantees to engineers and end users.  He designed a significant amount of the course, “so much so that I feel it really reflects not just my technical perspectives on the topic, but also my research and discussion personality,” says Dak Albab. He’s enjoyed the course so much that he hopes to teach a version of it in his upcoming position.

Beyond the classroom, Dak Albab has demonstrated a commitment to mentoring. He mentored several students and their research projects in the ETOS group resulting in a series of publications and conference presentations, highlighting his role as a mentor in his students’ academic achievements.

Malte Schwarzkopf, the Eliot Horowitz Assistant Professor of Computer Science, commends Kinan for his dedication, noting that he actively sought out ways to be involved in the reading selection process, curriculum development, and course delivery from the onset of his role as a teaching assistant. As a result of his involvement and contributions, the seminar designed for 20 students transformed into one with an enrollment of 64 and shopped by 100,when offered again the following year, illustrating the effectiveness Dak Albab's involvement had on student engagement.

“This award means so much to me because teaching has always been the most rewarding part of my journey. Getting to mentor wonderful students and watching them grow and mature as computer scientists and researchers is plenty of reward in itself, but it is a great feeling to know that my role and efforts were recognized and appreciated, “ says Dak Albab.

When not teaching, Dak Albab works on his dissertation, which is focused on privacy-by-construction in practice via designing new systems and abstractions. This includes building a new database system for automatic compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (the EU's privacy law), a web programming system that ensures web applications abide by the privacy policies and terms of services they promise to their end users, and various systems for enabling cryptographic computation on the web.

Dak Albab sees teaching as his calling, and recently accepted a tenure-track faculty position at Boston University at the Center for Computing and Data Science.

Kate Elizabeth Creasey, Samantha Borys, Kinan Dak Albab, and Caroline Cunfer receive Excellence in Teaching Awards at the University Awards Ceremony on April 30, 2025.