Current PhD Students
Galib Ibne Haidar (Fall 2023)
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2021
Research Interests: Hardware Security, Design for Sustainability, Pre-Silicon Verification, Post Silicon Validation
Publications: DAC 2024, ITC 2024
Internships: Micron Technology, DRAM Design Engineer, May 2024-August 2024
I am currently pursuing my PhD under Dr. Farimah Farahmandi at the University of Florida. I received my B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2021. After completing my graduation, I worked as a DFT engineer in Neural Semiconductor Limited for about one and a half years. During my free time, I love playing soccer, video games and watching movies.
Md Ajoad Hasan (Fall 2024)
B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2017
Research Interests: Hardware Security and Trust, Machine Learning
I am currently pursuing my PhD under the supervision of Dr. Farimah Farahmandi at the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity (FICS) Research of the University of Florida, where I joined as a Graduate Research Assistant in Fall 2024. Before that, I worked as a Design Engineer in Neural Semiconductor Limited for more than one year, where I was involved in the ASIC design flow process using EDA tools. In my spare time, I like to travel, listen to music and watch movies.
Khan Thamid Hasan (Spring 2025)
B.S. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2024
Research Interests: Hardware Security and Trust,Computer Architecture, Large Language Models
I am currently pursuing my Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Farimah Farahmandi at the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity (FICS) Research, University of Florida. I joined as a Graduate Research Assistant in Spring 2025. Before starting my Ph.D., I worked as a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) at Uttara University, Dhaka. I mainly work on the domain of Formal Verification and AI in Hardware Security and . In my free time, I enjoy playing soccer and badminton, watching movies and series, and listening to music.
Touhidul Islam (Fall 2025)
B.S. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2024
Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence, AI in Electronics, Large Language Model, Artificial General Intelligence.
Touhid is currently pursuing his Phd in ECE under the supervision of Dr. Farimah Farahmandi. He has researched in fields of AI like computer vision, large language models, speech large language model. His current interest includes integrating AI with electronics especially with the help of large language models. He is also interested in the broader development of LLMs. His long term research interest lies in advancing toward Artificial General Intelligence. In his spare time Touhid likes to watch movies and explore new stuffs.
Shahriar Ahmed (Fall 2026)
B.S. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2024
Research Interests: Hardware Security and trust, Computer architecture, Large Language Models
He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Farimah Farahmandi at the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity (FICS) research, University of Florida. He worked on the design and verification of a 32-bit pipelined RISC-V core for his undergraduate thesis. He loves teaching. After graduating, he worked as a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Southeast University, Dhaka. In his free time, he enjoys photography, reading, watching movies and anime, and cooking.
Post-Doctoral Fellows/Research Professors
Liton Kumar Biswas (Spring 2026)
Liton Kumar Biswas is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida and his M.S. in Applied Physics, Electronics, and Communication Engineering from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research interests include hardware security and trust, semiconductor failure analysis, advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration, silicon photonics, physical inspection, and reverse engineering. He investigates security and reliability vulnerabilities through physical probing, side-channel analysis, fault injection, quantum sensing, multimodal characterization, AI-assisted reliability assessment, and silicon photonics reliability.
Dr. Biswas is an inventor on two patents, and his research received a Best Paper Award from the International Microelectronics Assembly and Packaging Society (IMAPS) 2025. His scholarly work has appeared in leading technical publications, including IEEE Design & Test and Electronic Device Failure Analysis (EDFA). His research has also been presented at leading international conferences, including the International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA), IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), IMAPS, SPIE, and the Physical Assurance and Inspection of Electronics (PAINE) Conference. He has contributed to collaborative research involving government agencies and organizations such as NSF, AFRL, and NIST, as well as industry partners including Cisco, NHanced Semiconductors, FiconTEC, Applied Materials, Akrometrix, SkyWater Technology, and Monolithic Power Systems. Through these academic, government, and industry collaborations, Dr. Biswas has addressed critical challenges in semiconductor security, supply-chain assurance, failure analysis, advanced packaging, quantum sensing, photonics, and reliability.
Shuvagata Saha (Spring 2026)
Shuvagata Saha is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida in 2026 under the supervision of Dr. Mark Tehranipoor. Previously, he received his M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida in 2023 and his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2018.
His research interests include AI-assisted hardware design and verification, LLM-based hardware security verification, hardware emulation, system-on-chip (SoC) security, fault injection analysis, IP piracy protection, logic locking, and hardware fuzzing. He has authored several publications in leading journals and conferences, including DATE, ASP-DAC, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems (TVLSI), VLSI-SoC, GOMACTech, TECHCON, and IEEE Design & Test.
Upoma Das (Spring 2025)
Upoma Das is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida in 2025 and her M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida in 2023. Prior to that, she earned her B.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2018.
Her research interests include LLM-assisted security verification and AI-driven hardware design methodologies, side-channel analysis, formal verification, and chiplet-based systems. Her work has been published in leading journals and conferences, including IEEE TCAD, ACM TODAES, ITC, ETS, ISTFA, and VTS. She has also served as an editor of the Springer book LLM for SoC Design and Security (2026).
Her research focuses on developing secure, trustworthy, and intelligent methodologies for next-generation semiconductor systems by integrating hardware security, electronic design automation, and LLM.
Dr. Rakibul Hassan (Summer 2023)
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Research Interests: VLSI Testing; Hardware Verification; Hardware Security and Trust, with emphasis on: anti-counterfeiting, anti-Trojan, authentication, & anti-piracy solutions.
Publications:
“Effective Malware Detection for Embedded Computing Systems with Limited Exposure,” arXiv preprint, 2024.
“Circuit Topology-aware Vaccination-based Hardware Trojan Detection,” IEEE TCAD, 2023.
“A Trust-based Dynamic Distributed Authentication Framework for IoT Networks,” CODES+ISSS, 2023.
“Automated Supervised Topic Modeling Framework for Hardware Weaknesses,” ISQED, 2023.
Internship: Visiting Research Assistant Intern, University of Southern California, May 2021 – August 2021
Dr. Rakibul Hassan currently serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Florida, working under the guidance of Dr. Mark M. Tehranipoor and Dr. Farimah Farahmandi. He attained his Ph.D. from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, USA, under the supervision of Dr. Sai Manoj P D. His research focuses on ML Algorithms for Hardware Security and Trust and IoT network security. His work has been presented at prestigious conferences such as DATE, CASES, and ISQED. Rakibul earned his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2016, and served as a lecturer at Bangladesh University before joining graduate studies.
Former PhD
Mridha Md Mashahedur Rahman (Spring 2021)
B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2017
Research Interests: Hardware Security and Trust, Secure VLSI Design and finding vulnerabilities in ASIC Design
Publications: IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, 2024, DFTS 2023 and 2024, IEEE Design & Test 2024 and 2023, IEEE DAC 2023, IEEE VTS 2023, ASPDAC 2023, Cryptology ePrint Archive 2022, IEEE iSES 2021
Internships: Technical Intern, Security IP Team, Synopsys Inc., Summer 2022
Mashahedur obtained his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2017. He pursued his PhD in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA. His research interests include hardware security and trust, secure VLSI design, and finding vulnerabilities in ASIC design. He likes video games, movies, and traveling.
Zahin Ibnat (Spring 2021 – Summer 2026)
Current Affiliations: Caspia Technologies
B.Sc. in Computer Engineering at UF, 2020
Research Interests: AI Security and Digital Watermarking
Publications: IEEE HOST 2024, TCAD 2024, DFT 2023, DAC 2023, MWSCAS 2023
Zahin pursued her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering under Dr. Farahmandi at the University of Florida. She received her B.Sc. in Computer Engineering at UF in 2020. Her research focus was on AI Security and Digital Watermarking. Outside of academics, Zahin participated actively in her Bangladeshi community with traditional dance and volunteer work. For leisure, Zahin likes making digital art, playing video games, and watching most media on Netflix.
Nashmin Alam (Spring 2021 – Summer 2026)
Current Affiliations: AMD
BSc from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), October 2018
Research Interests: Hardware Security, Device Architecture, Pre-Silicon Verification, Post Silicon Validation
Publications: ISVLSI 2024, IEEE HOST 2023
She has pursued her PhD at the University of Florida under the supervision of Dr. Farimah Farahmandi and Dr. Mark Tehranipoor. She completed her BSc from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in October 2018. After her graduation, she worked as a lecturer in University of Information Technology & Sciences (UITS) and Bangladesh University of Business and Technology (BUBT). In her free time, she loves traveling, painting, and watching movies.
Shams Tarek (Spring 2021 – Summer 2025)
Current Affiliations: NVIDIA
B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2019
Research Interests: Hardware Security & Trust, Computer Architecture, and VLSI Design & Testing
Publications: ISVLSI 2023, DATE 2023, IEEE Design & Test 2023, DFTS 2023, GOMACTech, 2023
Shams has completed his PhD under Dr. Farimah Farahmandi at the University of Florida. He received his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2019. His research interest includes Hardware Security & Trust, Computer Architecture, and VLSI Design & Testing. His hobbies include watching sports, playing soccer, playing video games, and watching movies.
Dr. Dipayan Saha (Spring 2021 – Fall 2025)
Current Affiliations: Caspia Technologies
B.Sc. degree from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
Research Interests: Security Verification, Side-Channel Leakage Analysis, Deep Learning, Large Language Model
Publications: GOMACTech 2024, Cryptology ePrint Archive 2023, IET CCS 2021, IEEE Access 2020
Dipayan Saha has completed his PhD at the University of Florida. He received his B.Sc. degree from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2018. The prime focus of his current research is to apply AI-based solutions in the field of hardware security and trust. To specify, he is working on developing Large Language Model (LLM)-assisted solutions for hardware security verification and establishing deep learning-based methodologies for side-channel leakage assessment at the physical design/layout level. In his spare time, Dipayan likes listening to music and playing chess.
Dr. Rui Guo (Fall 2021 – Summer 2025)
Current Affiliations: Caspia Technologies
M.S. Electrical & Computer Engineering from University of Florida
Research Interests: Hardware Security and Trust, Logic Locking, and VLSI CAD.
Publications: TC 2021, 59th DAC, IEEE Access 2023, DATE 2023, PAINE 2023, MLCAD 2024
Internships: Caspia Technologies, R&D Intern, 2024
Dr. Sajeed Mohammad (Fall 2019 – Summer 2024)
Current Affiliation: Senior MTS CAD Engineer, Rambus
B.S. VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, India in 2018
Research Interests: Secure SoC development and life cycle management, CAD tools, Formal Verification, Hardware Security, Secure Firmware
Publications: ISVLSI 2021, iSES 2021, SRC TECHON 2022
Internships: CPU Design Intern, Intel, Summer 2022 (May to August), CAD Intern (May – August 2024)
Dr. Avinash Ayalasomayajula (Fall 2019 – Summer 2024)
Current Affiliation: Caspia Technologies
B.Tech, Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Goa, 2018
Research Interests: Security Validation, Obfuscation
Publications: VTS 2021
Internships: IP Design Engineering Intern, Intel, Summer 2022
Dr. Arash Vafaei (August 2020 – August 2024)
Current Affiliation: NVIDIA
PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, 2020-2024
M.Sc. in Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran, 2018
B.S. in Computer Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Iran, 2016
Publications: DATE 2024 (projected), DATE 2023, ASP-DAC 2023, IEEE ITC 2023, IEEE ITC 2021
Internships: Nvidia DFX Team 2022
Dr. Md Rafid Muttaki
Current Affiliation: Caspia Technologies
PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, 2019-2023
B.S., Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 2017
Publications: DATE 2023, MWSCAS 2023, PAINE 2023, ISFTA 2022, DAC 2022, TCAD 2022, IEEE HOST 2022, DAC 2021, Springer 2021
Internships: Mixed Signal Research Intern, Intel Labs, Intel, Fall 2022
Dr. Tao Zhang
Current Affiliation: NVIDIA
PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, 2019-2023
M.S. in Communication and Information System, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, 2019
B.E., Communication Engineering, Northwest University, 2016
Publications: IEEE TVLSI 2023, IEEE HOST 2023, IEEE ETS 2023, GOMACTech 2023, ECTC 2023, IEEE Design & Test 2022, IEEE HOST 2022, IEEE SLMW 2021, DAC 2021
Internships: Nvidia, Analog Devices Inc., University of Electronic Science and Technology
Former Post-Doctorate Fellows
Dr. Sujan Saha
Current Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Auburn University
PhD in Computer Engineering, University of Florida, 2023
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=cgtLTMEAAAAJ
Dr. Akshay Kulkarni
Current Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Prairie View A&M University
PhD University of Toledo, 2023
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=rj9ShSYAAAAJ
Dr. Imtiaz Rashid
Current Affiliation: Digital Design Engineer, Texas Instruments
PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas (August 2024)
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9RyYNDoAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr. Jingbo Zhou
Current Affiliation: Security Engineer, Google
PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ohio State University, 2023
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=U5hEJjcAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr. Sree Ranjani Rajendran
Current Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Florida Atlantic University
PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, 2019-2023
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=DGw89UEAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr. Kimia Azar Zamiri
Current Affiliation: Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida
PhD Computer Engineering, George Mason University
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BPYHZUMAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr. Sukanta Dey
Current Affiliation: Senior EDA Engineer at Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=3ZJX3IsAAAAJ&hl=en
Dr. Nalla Anandakumar
Current Affiliation: Senior Specialist Security Architect, Continental
Publications/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=XPBa-4sAAAAJ&hl=en
Former Master Students
Konark Sikkah
Layiwola L. Ibukun
Nathaniel Rizza
Former Undergraduate Students
Gabriel A. Hernandez
Dieter Steinhauser
Thomas Le
Geoffrey Simon
Brian Barker
Carlos de Guzman
Daniel Weller
Jamison Stevens
Nicholas Samlal
Undergraduate Student, Computer Engineering, University of Florida