Funded Projects

George Mason University

Co-PI of "GenA(eye)ris: Generating Synthetic Iris Biometrics for Presentation Attack Security and Security for Generative Biometric Models" - Funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI), AI for Cybersecurity/Cybersecurity for AI: Brendan David-John CS Virginia Tech (Principal Investigator), Yanardag Delul, Pinar CS Virginia Tech (Co-Principal Investigator), $100,000, January 2025 - June 2026. 

Sole PI of "EAGER: SaTC: Sweaty Digits: Bridging Chemistry and AI-Empowered Imaging for Secure and Trustworthy Human Identity Verification" - Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Emanuela Marasco (Principal Investigator), $200,000, July 2023 - August 2025. 

Sole PI of "EAGER: COVID-19 Real-time Detection via Hyperspectral Analysis of Sweat Metabolite Biometrics", Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Emanuela Marasco (Principal Investigator), $174,320, July 2020 - June 2025. 

Sole PI of "Identity Verification in Smartphones as Social Intersectionality: Inclusive Design of Contactless Fingerprints to Mitigate Skin Tone and Gender Bias" - Funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI), Inclusive Cybersecurity: Emanuela Marasco (Principal Investigator), $50,000, June 2024 - May 2025.

Sole PI of "Video-Based, Secure, Accurate and Usable Contactless Fingerprint Authentication in Smartphones" - Funded by Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA), Emanuela Marasco (Principal Investigator), $50,000, August 2023 - December 2024.

Co-PI of "Phase II IUCRC George Mason University: Center for Cybersecurity Analytics and Automation CCAA" - Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF): Sushil Jajodia (Principal Investigator), Rajesh Ganesan (Co-Principal Investigator), Kun Sun (Co-Principal Investigator), Massimiliano Albanese (Co-Principal Investigator), Emanuela Marasco (Co-Principal Investigator), $649,120, Sept. 2018 – Aug. 2024.

Co-PI of "Accounting for Covariates in Forensic Error Rate Assessment and Evidence Interpretation" - Funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ): Larry Tang (Principal Investigator), Christopher Saunders (Co-Principal Investigator), Emanuela Marasco (Co-Principal Investigator), $495,056, January 2020 - April 2023.

Sole PI of "Protecting Smartphones from Fingerphoto Spoofing via Deep Fusion of Color Spaces" - Funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI): Emanuela Marasco (Principal Investigator), $50,000, July 2022 - June 2023.

PI of "A Study on Authentication Usability of Biometric-based Multi-factor Mechanisms" - Funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI): Emanuela Marasco (Principal Investigator) and Massimiliano Albanese (Co-Principal Investigator), $50,000, July 2021 - June 2022. 

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Co-PI: Clarkson University / National Science Foundation (NSF) – Identification Technology Transition Readiness and Accelerated Innovation Network (IT-Train).
PI: Bojan Cukic. Amount: $67,376. Duration: Feb. 23, 2015 – Feb. 28, 2018.

Senior Personnel: University of Houston (DHS Center of Excellence on Borders, Trade, and Immigration) – “A Systematic Process for Biometric Systems at Borders.” Amount: $100,768. Duration: July 2016 – June 2017.

West Virginia University

PI: CiTeR, West Virginia University – Automating Interoperability Enhancement for Fingerprint Sensors.
Co-PI: Bojan Cukic. Amount: $50,000, July 1, 2013 – June 30, 2014.

Senior Personnel: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice – DNA TRAC II: “Methods and Tools for Enhancing Degraded DNA Signals.”
Amount: $184,245. Duration: Oct. 2010 – Sept. 2014.