Contact

✉️ [email protected]

📍 Hannover, Germany

:li-bug-svg-original: LinkedIn

:bluesky: Bluesky

Interests

🏀 Basketball

⚽ Football

🎾 Tennis

🏙️ Day Trips

🎮 Video Games

🦥 Wasting hours on random YouTube videos

Languages

🇩🇪 German (Native Speaker)

🇺🇸 English (Professional working proficiency)

🇦🇱 Albanian (Enough for playground insults)

<aside> <img src="/icons/chemistry_blue.svg" alt="/icons/chemistry_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Hi 👋,

I am Dren, a Ph.D. student at the L3S research center in Hannover, Germany. My research interests are basically everything covered in the Wikipedia page for Adversarial Machine Learning. I am particularly fond of adversarial examples, LLM security, and model stealing 🕵️

I graduated from Leibniz University Hannover in 2022 with a master’s degree in Computer Science.

Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss anything related to AI!

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<aside> <img src="/icons/warning_red.svg" alt="/icons/warning_red.svg" width="40px" /> Disclaimer: This is my current, up-to-date personal web page. My GitHub.io page is outdated (though I maintain it to host dynamic content for this page)

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Employment History

Research Associate

L3S Research Center, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

July 2022 - Present

• Research in the field of robust AI (three manuscripts so far!)
• Ten talks to general audiences about the impact and utility of AI technology
• Involved in four grant proposals, three led by our research center, one co-conceived by me
• Supervision of eight students ranging from seminars to theses
• Involved in multiple transfer projects to support local organizations and enterprises

AI Expert

European Digital Innovation Hub for AI and Cybersecurity (DAISEC), Germany

April 2025 - Present

• Involved as an AI Expert in European Transfer Project
• Consulting of local SMEs, particularly craftsmen
• Development of larger prototype systems, predominantly for local education sector

Project Coordinator of "Zukunftslabor Gesellschaft und Arbeit”

Zentrum für digitale Innovationen Niedersachsen, Germany

July 2022 - April 2025

• Research focus of the project: Impact of (AI-driven) digitization on labor and the society in general
• Managed & coordinated over 20 researchers across 8 research institutes in Lower Saxony
• Mediated between research consortium and over 20 associated partners
• Organized a project symposium involving renowned researchers, industry partners, and key political figures

Education

Doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat.) in Computer Science

July 2022 - Present

Topic: Secure Foundation Models

I am developing a standardized human evaluation protocol for analyzing the imperceptibility of unrestricted adversarial examples. Such examples are generated by significantly altering data points without losing their realistic appearance (e.g., by recoloring irrelevant image areas). This protocol would establish a new way to compare such attacks. In an upcoming BMBF-funded research project, I will also work on a fine-tuning framework to raise an LLM’s so-called sensitivity awareness (i.e., it’s ability to securely manage and disseminate corporate data per given access rights rules).

Master of Science (M. Sc.) in Computer Science

October 2019 - January 2022

Grade: 1.6 (German grading system), 3.4 GPA

The focus of my master's degree was on the multifaceted research area of Artificial Intelligence. For this purpose, I dealt extensively with Deep Learning, Data Mining, Multimedia Retrieval, and Automated Machine Learning. During my studies, I repeatedly applied the knowledge I had acquired in practice.

Crucial for working and researching in the field of Artificial Intelligence is the handling of scientific literature: I have gained experience in critically analyzing scientific papers from different areas of computer science and professionally presenting their contents in written and oral form. This experience was crucial for my master thesis, where I investigated the interaction of two modern AutoML concepts. Despite a lack of prior knowledge, I could provide exciting and vital results for future research in this contemporary field of Machine Learning.

Bachelor of Science (B. Sc.) in Computer Science

October 2016 - September 2019

Grade: 2.0 (German grading system), 3.0 GPA

In my Bachelor's program, I not only enjoyed a wide-ranging education in computer science but also dealt intensively with topics in the field of theoretical computer science, software engineering, and the development, use, and management of database systems. My enthusiasm for the latter led me to the topic of my bachelor thesis, in which I thoroughly investigated modern SQL concepts.My interest in complex algorithms and the more theoretical side of computer science led me to the field of Artificial Intelligence, where I already gained my first experience in an AI-focused Master's program during my Bachelor's studies. Building intelligent models based on given data was exciting and seamlessly tied in with my fascination for theoretical computer science and database systems.

Publications/Manuscripts

Publications

Presentations, Posters & Workshops

Presentations, Posters & Workshops

Locations of my Presentations, Posters and Workshops (Hover over a cluster to see the bounds of its children and click a cluster to zoom to those bounds)

https://drenfazlija.github.io/talkmap/map.html

Research & Transfer Projects

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Skills

My Skills