Mentors

Principal Investigators, Program Directors, or Faculty Mentors

Current Mentors

Niki Pissinou

Dr. Pissinou has published over two hundred and fifty research papers in peer reviewed journals, conference proceedings, books, and book chapters on networking, telecommunications, distributed systems, mobile computing, security and aspects of nontraditional data management including co-editing over four texts in the area of mobile and wireless networking andsystems and over fourteen IEEE and ACM conference volumes. Widely cited in books and research papers, her research has been funded by NSF, DHS, NASA, DOT, DoD, state governments and industry. She has graduated over nineteen Ph.D. students who now hold positions in academia, federal government and industry. Dr. Pissinou has served as the general and technical program chair on a variety of ACM and IEEE conferences. She also served on hundreds of IEEE and ACM program committees, organizing committees, review panels, advisory boards, editorial boards, etc. She has served as an editor of many journals including the IEEE Transactions on Data and Knowledge Engineering. She also has been the founder of many professional forums, including the ACM GIS. Dr. Pissinou has given keynote talks at various events and served as consultant to industry. Her achievements have been recognized by her peers, who have given her several awards and honors, including best paper awards.

Sitharama Iyengar

Dr. S.S. Iyengar is currently the Ryder Professor of Computer Science and Director of the School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University (FIU), Miami. He is also the founding director of the Discovery Lab. Prior to joining FIU, Dr. Iyengar was the Roy Paul Daniel's Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Computer Science department for over 20 years at Louisiana State University. He has also worked as a visiting scientist at Oak Ridge National Lab, Jet Propulsion Lab, Satish Dhawan Professor at IISc and Homi Bhabha Professor at IGCAR, Kalpakkam and University of Paris and visited Tsinghua University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) etc. His research interests include High-Performance Algorithms, Biomedical Computing, Sensor Fusion, and Intelligent Systems for the last four decades. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI Program), Office of Naval Research (ONR), Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory (DOE/ORNL), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US Army Research Office (URO), and various state agencies and companies. Dr. Iyengar is a computer scientist of international repute who has been a pioneer in multiple fields. Marked by his incredible record of success in the areas of world-class research, superb teaching, and excellence in community service, he has also significantly impacted industry, through his many discoveries and patents. His distinguished international and national research work have consistently been recognized by US government agencies, industry pioneers, and his research colleagues. His work has been featured on the cover of the National Science Foundation's breakthrough technologies in both 2014 and again in 2016. Dr. Iyengar has garnered multiple awards for his work and made fundamental contributions in a variety of areas that impact our lives today. His seminal contributions continue to be seen in places like Raytheon, Telcordia, Motorola the United States Navy, DARPA and other universities and research laboratories around the world.

Biography for Dr. S.S. Iyengar

Alexander Afanasyev

Dr. Afanasyev is currently an Assistant Professor in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University. Prior joining FIU, he was an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and before that a postdoctoral scholar in UCLA. His main research focus is on the next generation Internet architecture as part of the Named Data Networking (NDN) project; and his research interests include a variety of topics that are vital for the success of NDN, including scalability of name-based routing, auto-configuration, distributed data synchronization, application and network security. Dr. Afanasyev’s postdoctoral achievements have been recognized by the UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research. He is also leading the development effort of the overall NDN codebase. Dr. Afanasyev’s particular interest currently is application of Information-Centric Networking (ICN) to Internet-of-Things (IoT), specifically realizing the vision of IoT where applications securely communicate with and about “things” without being concerned about specific details of the devices/controllers that represent things.

Hadi Amini

Dr. Amini is an Assistant Professor at the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University. He is the director of Sustainability, Optimization, and Learning for InterDependent networks laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2019, where he received his M.Sc. degree in 2015. He also holds a doctoral degree in Computer Science and Technology. Prior to that, he received M.Sc. degree from Tarbiat Modares University in 2013, and the B.Sc. degree from Sharif University of Technology in 2011. His research interests include machine learning and optimization algorithms, distributed computing and intelligence, sensor networks, interdependent networks, and cyber-physical resilience. Application domains include robotics, smart cities, energy systems, intelligent transportation networks, and healthcare.

Leonardo Bobadilla

Dr. Bobadilla is currently an Assistant Professor in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University. He is interested in understanding the information requirements for solving fundamental robotics tasks such as navigation, patrolling, tracking, and motion safety and has deployed test-beds that can track and control a large number of mobile units that require minimal sensing, actuation, and computation. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has received several awards and has published 37 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. His research articles have appeared in prestigious journals such as IEEE Journal of Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks. His research has been sponsored by the Army Research Office, Department of Homeland Security, NSF, and the Ware Foundation. He has graduated three Ph.D. students and one master’s student who are well placed in major companies and universities.

Kianoosh Boroojeni

Dr. Boroojeni received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Florida International University in 2017. He received his B.Sc degree from the University of Tehran in 2012. Dr. Boroojeni is the author/co-author of five books published by MIT Press and Springer Publication. He has also published tens of peer-reviewed journal papers and conference proceedings. He received a conference Best Paper Award and has been granted the 2016 Best Graduate Student Research Award by the School of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University. His research interests include network optimization and cybersecurity.

Bogdan Carbunar

Dr. Carbunar is an Associate Professor in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at FIU, and directs the Cyber Security and Privacy Research (CaSPR) Lab, where he develops secure and usable systems. His research interests are at the intersection of security, privacy and distributed systems, where he derives novel insights through the use of machine learning, applied cryptography and user studies. His recent interests include fraud and abuse detection in online systems (e.g., Google, Facebook, Yelp), mobile authentication and cryptocurrency-based censorship resistance. He has published papers in top tier conferences and journals, some of which have received best paper awards. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue University and a B.S. from Politehnica University Bucharest.

Jun Li

Dr. Li is an assistant professor of the School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University. Before joining FIU, Dr. Li received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Toronto in 2016, and his M.S. and B.S. degrees at Fudan University, China, in 2012 and 2009, respectively. His research focuses on large-scale distributed storage systems with erasure coding. Merging the gap between theory and practice, his research studies both theoretical and practical challenges of deploying erasure coding in a distributed storage system with high performance and low resource consumption.

Ananda Mondal

Dr. Mondal is currently an Assistant Professor in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University (FIU). His research interests include Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning with Special Interest in Deep Learning, and Bioinformatics. Prior to joining FIU, Dr. Mondal was an Assistant Professor (2012-2018) of Computer Science in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Claflin University, South Carolina. At Claflin University, a liberal arts and primarily undergraduate teaching institute, Dr. Mondal was a strong proponent of bringing research to undergraduate classes he taught. He developed four courses to introduce his research in Big Data and Bioinformatics to undergraduate students at Claflin University. Students mentored by Dr. Mondal graduated with refereed publications in IEEE BIBE, IEEE BIBM, and BIOCOMP. As the culmination of his career at Claflin, Dr. Mondal received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award in 2017. He was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor at Claflin University in August 2018. In Bangladesh, Dr. Mondal served as a Lecturer and then as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Carolina in 2011.

Gregory Ries

Dr. Reis received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at Florida International University in 2018, and his M.S. in Systems Engineering and his B.S. in Computer Science from Federal University of Lavras, Brazil, in 2014 and 2012, respectively. He completed his Ph.D. as a Science without Borders fellow, sponsored by federal agencies NSF, ONR, CAPES, and LASPAU (Harvard University). With 19 years of experience in teaching, Dr. Reis has taught Mathematics and Computer Science courses for several undergraduate programs and schools. Moreover, he has experience in early, elderly and special education. Dr. Reis has published several papers in conferences and journals. His current research interests are centered on the challenges of marine robotics and STEM Education. Key problems he has addressed so far include localization and navigation of aquatic robots in GPS-denied environments, analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the ocean, and the development of new technologies for environmental monitoring.

Jerry Miller

Colonel Jerry Miller, USAF (Ret.) is an Associate Director Academic Support Services and Adjunct Faculty member. He joined FIU in 2006 as Associate Director and Principal Investigator for renewable energy, international security, and technology research at the Applied Research Center before joining the School of Computing and Information Sciences. He spent over 27 years in the US Air Force, serving as a Foreign Area Officer for Latin America, Strategic Plans Officer, and Resource Staff Officer in the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS). He served at the US Embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay, and in Honduras. Mr. Miller received his BS in Basic Sciences from the United States Air Force Academy and holds an MA in Management and Human Resources, as well as an MS in Telecommunications and Computer Networking. He is a graduate of the Air University's Air War College, the Air Command and Staff College, Eaker College Joint Doctrine Air Campaign Course, as well as the On-Scene Commander's Disaster Management Course and is a DoD certified Spanish Linguist. He conducts research in the privacy and security of wireless and sensor networks, robotics. and other related areas.

Past Mentors

Mark A. Finlayson

Dr. Finlayson recieved his Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT in 2012 under the supervision of Professor Patrick H. Winston. Following that, he was a Research Scientist in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for two and a half years. He received his M.S. in 2001 from MIT, and the B.S. in 1998 from the University of Michigan, both in Electrical Engineering. He is co-founder and general chair of the Computational Models of Narrative Workshop series, and lead guest editor of the forthcoming Literary and Linguistic Computing special issue on Computational Models of Narrative.

Scott Graham

Dr. Graham is the Assistant Director, Research, for FIU's School of Computing and Information Sciences (SCIS) and serves as Program Coordinator for FIU SCIS's NSF PIRE and CREST awards. As Assistant Director for Government Relations of FIU's High Performance Database Research Center and its NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC), he has assisted their Director, Naphtali Rishe, in overseeing projects totaling over $45 million. His areas of interest include program management, broadening participation, database modeling, Internet applications, and computer architecture. Dr. Graham received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from FIU and his BSE in Computer and Information Engineering Science from the University of Florida. He has authored more than forty publications covering his areas of interest and is a member of both Tau Beta Pi and Upsilon Pi Epsilon honor societies.

Endadul Hoque

Dr. Hoque received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University. After his PhD, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Northeastern University. His research interests lie at the intersection of networked systems and security. Broadly, he is interested in tackling practical cybersecurity problems in the networking domain, where the overarching goal is to create automated techniques for achieving higher assurance on networked systems. He primarily apply program analysis and formal verification techniques to design and develop automated analysis techniques for aiding the development of secure networked systems, including real-world implementations of network protocols and IoT systems. During his PhD, he received the Graduate Teaching Fellowship award in 2014 and the Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship award in 2015. His research work has been published in several top security and networking conferences (e.g., S&P, DSN) and journals (e.g., ToN).

Jong-Hoon Kim

Dr. Kim is currently an adjunct professor the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University (FIU). He received a B.S. from Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, South Korea in 2005. He received a M.S. and Ph.D. in department of computer science, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge in 2008 and in 2011 respectively. His research interests are in Tele-robotics, Mobile Robot, HRI, Embedded System, HCI,Sensor Network, and Intelligent System. Currently, his research is focusing on Tele-robotic project, Tele-presence humanoid robot for law enforcement and Intelligent Home System (IHS), focusing on the quality of life and security while providing solutions that increase comfort and entertainment. At the same time, it will provide enhanced security as well as improved energy efficiency.

Deng Pan

Dr. Pan received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2007. His research interests are generally in high performance switch design and high speed networking. His current research focuses on network function virtualization, data center networking, and energy efficient networking. He has published over fifty peer-reviewed papers in leading refereed journals and conferences, including the IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE INFOCOM, and IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. He has served as local arrangement co-chair or technical program committee member in many international conferences, including IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE GLOBECOM, and ICPP.

Ning Xie

Dr. Xie received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2012 from MIT. His research interests are in many aspects of algorithmic and complexity theory, including property testing, local computation algorithms, Fourier analysis of Boolean functions, circuit complexity and coding theory. His research has been supported by NSF and U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Program.

Wei Zeng

Dr. Zeng received her Ph.D. degree from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2008 and had her postdoctoral training at Stony Brook University in 2010-2012. She also worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Stony Brook University during her graduate study. Her Ph.D. thesis was titled "Computational Conformal Geometry Based Shape Analysis". Her research interests include computational conformal geometry, Teichmuller quasiconformal geometry, discrete Ricci flow, and their applications to surface matching, registration, tracking, recognition, and shape analysis. Her research areas span over computer vision, medical imaging, computer graphics and visualization, wireless sensor network, geometric modeling, and computational topology. She has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals (e.g., IEEE TPAMI, IEEE TVCG, IJCV) and conferences (e.g., ICCV, ECCV, CVPR, VIS, SPM, IPMI, MICCAI, INFOCOM, IPSN) and a book by Springer titled "Ricci Flow for Shape Analysis and Surface Registration: Theories, Algorithms and Applications", won a Best paper award in International Journal of CAD/CAM (IJCC 2009), and has two U.S. patents on virtual colonoscopy techniques.

Liting Hu

Dr. Hu got her PhD degree in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology. Before that, she completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China. Her research is in the general area of distributed systems and its intersection with big data analytics, resource management, power management and system virtualization. She spent summers interning at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Intel Science and Technology Center for Cloud Computing, Microsoft Research Asia, VMware, and has been working closely with them. Her work was published at top conferences like USENIX ATC 2014, SOCC 2013, ICDCS 2012, ICAC 2012 and Cluster 2008.

Shaolei Ren

Dr. Ren received the B.E. degree in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University in July 2006, the M.Phil. degree in Eletronic and Computer Engineering from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in August 2008, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles, in June 2012. Since August 2012, he has been with Florida International University, where he currently holds a joint appointment of Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Information Sciences and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Ren�s research spans cloud computing, data center optimization and network economics. He received the Best Paper Award at IEEE International Conference on Communications in 2009, and was selected by IBM T. J. Watson Research as one of the 10 Emerging Leaders in Multimedia and Signal Processing in 2010.

Nagarajan Prabakar

Dr. Prabakar is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University. His research interests are generally in Distributed Sensor Networks, Grid Computing, Computer Networks, Image Processing for Spatial Data and Multimedia Databases.

Xin Sun

Dr. Sun received his Ph.D. degree from Purdue University in 2012, and B.E. degree from University of Science and Technology of China in 2005, both in Computer Engineering. He is now an assistant professor in the School of Computing and information Sciences at FIU. His research interests are in the design, operation and management of enterprise networks, and in software defined networking. His research emphasizes on system building and experimental evaluation.

Ming Zhao

Dr. Zhao is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University. His research interests are generally in Operating Systems, Virutalization, Distributed Computing, High-performanced Systems and Autonomic Computing.

Ruogu Fang

Dr. Fang is currently an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University. She is also an affiliated faculty of the Cognitive Neuroscience & Imaging Center at School of integrated Science and Humanity. She received her Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell University in 2014 (Advisor: Tsuhan Chen). Prior to that, she received her B.Sc. degree in information engineering from Zhejiang University in 2009, and M.Sc. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell University in 2013. In 2010 and 2011 respectively, Ruogu worked at Siemens and Kodak as a research intern. She is a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS), American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR) and Medical Imaging Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention Society (MICCAI). Prof. Fang's research group aims to explore intelligent approaches to bridge the data and medical informatics. The focus is on computing and analytics of functional imaging, such as cerebral blood flow estimation in CT perfusion, deconvolution in low-dose radiation CT imaging and fast arterial spin labeling MRI. These are critical imaging and analytics foundations for future ultra-low-radiation, high-speed and high-resolution medical imaging.