Kinan Dak Albab

Assistant Professor

SPACE Lab
Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, Boston University
Office: CDS 1336
Email: babman [at] bu [dot] edu

Interests: Computer systems, privacy-conscious systems, security, applied cryptography.

Stories

If I wasn't an academic, I would want to be a Hakawati حكواتي, an expert storyteller who sits on a stage in a cafe and narrates local stories and folk myths. As my friends will testify, I practice this skill often, in case the opportunity ever presents itself.

These are a collection of my best stories. All of them are real events.

Academics often present themselves in a certain way, one that makes their lives and their stories appear linear, a clean narrative moving from one time-appropriate success to the next: the talented child, the early successful researcher, the smooth sailing PhD, the visionary professor.

These stories break that pattern. If you are a student, a professional, or an aspiring anything who is struggling or who "got lost on the path of life", you are not alone, and you will make it.

These stories are organized chronologically, but any narrative they form is illusory. In reality, it was all chaos. Feel free to read them in a correspondingly chaotic order.