I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA.  

The goal of my research encompasses strengthening the security of the globalized semiconductor supply chain and developing security-focused CAD tools and methodologies to realize secure and trustworthy hardware and systems. A detailed biography can be found here.

Research Interests

• Hardware Security, Computer Security

• Secure Computer-Aided Design Tools

• Reinforcement Learning (RL) for Security

• Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) for Security

• Intellectual Property Protection (Logic Locking, Layout Camouflaging, Split Manufacturing)

• Heterogenous Integration and Emerging Technologies for Security

Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, USA (2015 – 2020)

• M.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering (Specialization in VLSI Design), Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management, India (2011 – 2013)

• B.E. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, University of Pune, India (2006 – 2010)

Work Experience

• Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Delaware (August 2023 -- Present)

• Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University (October 2020 – July 2023)

• Teaching Assistant, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University (Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022)

• Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, USA (September 2015 – August 2020)

• Lead Instructor, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management and Studies, India (July 2013 – March 2015)

• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, India (July 2011 – June 2013)

Awards

• Third place in Applied Research Competition, Cyber Security Awareness Week, 2021

• Finalist at SIGDA DAC Ph.D. Forum, 2019

• Bronze Medal (Graduate Category) in ACM/SIGDA Microsoft Student Research Competition, 2018

• Best Paper Award in Applied Research Competition, Cyber Security Awareness Week, 2017

• New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Global Ph.D. Student Fellowship (2015 – 2020)

• Post Graduate Scholarship, All India Council for Technical Education, India (2011 – 2013)

News

• 03/24 Our paper "STATION: State Encoding-based Attack Resilient Sequential Obfuscation," has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 2024

• 02/24: Our paper "AttackGNN: Red-Teaming GNNs in Hardware Security Using Reinforcement Learning," has been accepted for publication at 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX), 2024

• 02/24: Serving as a TPC member for IEEE/ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI), 2024

• 02/24: Serving as a TPC member for IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI), 2024

• 12/23: Serving as a TPC member for Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2024

• 11/23: Our paper "UN-SPLIT: Attacking Split Manufacturing using Link Prediction in Graph Neural Networks," has been accepted for publication at 13th International Conference on Security, Privacy, and Applied Cryptographic Engineering (SPACE), 2023

• 08/23: Our paper "DETERRENT: Detecting Trojans Using Reinforcement Learning," has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 2023

• 08/23: Started new position as an Assistant Professor in the ECE department at the University of Delaware

• 07/23: Our paper "ExploreFault: Identifying Exploitable Fault Models in Block Ciphers with Reinforcement Learning" was presented at Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2023

• 06/23: Serving as a TPC member for International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 2023

• 05/23: Serving as a TPC member for International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2023

• 05/23: Serving as a TPC member for Digital System Design (DSD), 2023

• 04/23: Our paper "PoisonedGNN: Backdoor Attack on Graph Neural Networks-based Hardware Security Systems” has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), 2023

• 03/23: Serving as a TPC Member for IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI), 2023

• 03/23: Our paper "VIGILANT: Vulnerability Detection Tool against Fault-Injection Attacks for Locking Techniques" has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 2023

• 02/23: Our paper "ExploreFault: Identifying Exploitable Fault Models in Block Ciphers with Reinforcement Learning" has been accepted at Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2023

• 11/22: The winners of the "AI vs. Humans" competition have been announced. Thank you to all the teams for participating!

• 11/22: Our paper "ATTRITION: Attacking Static Hardware Trojan Detection Techniques Using Reinforcement Learning" was presented at ACM SIGSAC Computers and Communications Security (CCS), 2022

• 11/22: Our paper "Embracing Graph Neural Networks for Hardware Security" was presented at International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2022

• 10/22: Serving as a Session Chair for "Algorithms and Tools for Security Analysis and Secure Hardware Design (Session 14B)" at International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2022

• 10/22: Serving as a Session Chair for "Physical Attacks and Countermeasures (Session 6B)" at International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2022

• 10/22: Our paper "Titan: Evaluating Security of Large-scale Hardware Obfuscation using Graph Neural Networks" has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 2022

• 10/22: Finalists for the "AI vs. Humans" competition have been announced ( LINK )

• 09/22: Our paper "FerroCoin: Ferroelectric Tunnel Junction-based True Random Number Generator" has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC), 2022

• 09/22: "AI vs. Humans" competition is now live

• 09/22: Our paper "ATTRITION: Attacking Static Hardware Trojan Detection Techniques Using Reinforcement Learning" has been accepted for publication at ACM SIGSAC Computers and Communications Security (CCS), 2022

• 09/22: Our paper "Hide & Seek: Seeking the (Un)-Hidden Key in Provably-Secure Logic Locking Techniques" has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 2022

• 08/22: Co-organizing a first-of-its-kind competition, "AI vs. Humans" at Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW), 2022

• 08/22: Serving as a TPC Member for Asia South Pacific-Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC), 2023

• 08/22 Our paper "Embracing Graph Neural Networks for Hardware Security" has been accepted as a special session paper at International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2022

• 07/22: Our paper "DETERRENT: Detecting Trojans Using Reinforcement Learning" was presented at Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2022

• 07/22: Our paper "SCRAMBLE: A Secure and Configurable, Memristor-Based Neuromorphic Hardware Leveraging 3D Architecture" was presented at the IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI), 2022

• 07/22: Serving as a Session Chair for "Side Channels go Mainstream!!" at Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2022

• 06/22: Serving as a TPC member for International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 2022

• 05/22: Serving as a TPC member for International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2022

• 04/22: Serving as a TPC member for Digital System Design (DSD), 2022

• 04/22: Serving as a TPC member for IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI), 2022

• 03/22: Our paper "MuxLink: Circumventing Learning-Resilient MUX-Locking Using Graph Neural Network-based Link Prediction" was presented at Design, Automation, and Test in Europe Conference (DATE), 2022

• 02/22: Our paper "DETERRENT: Detecting Trojans Using Reinforcement Learning" has been accepted at Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2022

• 02/22: Our paper "Valkyrie: Vulnerability Assessment Tool and Attack for Provably-Secure Logic Locking Techniques" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 2022

• 01/22: Our paper "Design-Time Exploration of Voltage Switching against Power Analysis Attacks in 14nm FinFET Technology" has been accepted for publication in Integration VLSI Journal, 2022

• 11/21: Our paper "UNTANGLE: Unlocking Routing and Logic Obfuscation Using Graph Neural Networks-based Link Prediction" was presented at International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2021

• 11/21: Our paper "SCANet: Securing the Weights with Superparamagnetic-MTJ Crossbar Array Networks" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS), 2021

• 11/21 Our paper "MuxLink: Circumventing Learning-Resilient MUX-Locking Using Graph Neural Network-based Link Prediction" has been accepted as a full paper in Design, Automation, and Test in Europe Conference (DATE), 2022

• 10/21: Our paper "Game Dollars Splits: A Game Theoretic Analysis of Split Manufacturing" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 2021

• 09/21: Our paper "OMLA: An Oracle-less Machine Learning-based Attack on Logic Locking" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs (TCAS-II), 2021

• 08/21: Our paper "GNN-RE: Graph Neural Networks for Reverse Engineering of Gate-Level Netlists" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 2021

• 08/21: Our paper "GNNUnlock+: A Systematic Methodology for Designing Graph Neural Networks-based Oracle-less Unlocking Schemes for Provably Secure Logic Locking" has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC), 2021

• 07/21: Our paper "UNTANGLE: Unlocking Routing and Logic Obfuscation Using Graph Neural Networks-based Link Prediction" has been accepted for publication at International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2021

• 06/21: Serving as a TPC member for International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 2021

• 06/21: Our book "The Next Era of Hardware Security: A Perspective on Emerging Technologies for Secure Electronics" is now available online at Springer

• 06/21: Our paper "PolyWorm: A Polymorphic Spintronic Gate-based Hardware Trojan Insertion Technique" has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC), 2021

• 06/21: Serving as a Session Chair for "Hardware Security I" at GLSVLSI, 2021

• 05/21: Serving as a TPC member for Digital System Design (DSD), 2021

• 04/21: Registration for HeLLO CTF 2021 starts. Please register your teams

• 02/21: Co-organizing "Attacks on Logic Locking and Hardware Obfuscation Capture the Flag (HeLLO CTF)", 2021. This event is jointly organized with the University of Florida, Texas A&M University, New York University Abu Dhabi, and the University of Texas at Dallas

• 02/21: Our paper "Fa-SAT: Fault-aided SAT-based Attack on Compound Logic Locking Techniques" was presented at Design, Automation, and Test in Europe Conference (DATE), 2021

• 02/21: Our paper "GNNUnlock: Graph Neural Networks-based Oracle-less Unlocking Scheme for Provably Secure Logic Locking" was presented at Design, Automation, and Test in Europe Conference (DATE), 2021

• 01/21: Our paper "Concerted Wirelifting: Enabling Secure and Cost-Effective Split Manufacturing" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 2021

• 01/21: Our paper "UNSAIL: Thwarting Oracle-Less Machine Learning Attacks on Logic Locking" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 2021

• 11/20: Our paper "Security Promises and Vulnerabilities In Emerging Reconfigurable Nanotechnology-Based Circuits" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC), 2020

• 11/20: Our paper "Fa-SAT: Fault-aided SAT-based Attack on Compound Logic Locking Techniques" has been accepted as a full paper at Design, Automation, and Test in Europe Conference (DATE), 2021

• 11/20: Our paper "GNNUnlock: Graph Neural Networks-based Oracle-less Unlocking Scheme for Provably Secure Logic Locking" has been accepted as a full paper at Design, Automation, and Test in Europe Conference (DATE), 2021

• 10/20: Our paper "Design Flow for Active Interposer-Based 2.5D ICs and Study of RISC-V Architecture with Secure NoC" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology (TCPMT), 2020

• 10/20: Our paper "Deep Learning Analysis for Split Manufactured Layouts with Routing Perturbation" has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), 2020

• 10/20: Joined as a Postdoctoral Researcher with Prof. Jeyavijayan (JV) Rajendran at Texas A&M University in the Secure and Trustworthy Hardware (SETH) Lab

• 09/20: Completed my Doctoral studies at Tandon School of Engineering, New York University

• 08/20: Our paper "2.5D Root of Trust: Secure System-Level Integration of Untrusted Chiplets" has been accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), 2020

• 08/20: Successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis titled "Advancing Design IP Protection using CAD Frameworks for and Beyond CMOS". My doctoral dissertation committee members are Prof. Ozgur Sinanoglu, Prof. Ramesh Karri, Prof. Siddharth Garg, and Prof. Michail Maniatakos