Professor Fatih | Photo by Bethany Althauser | The Wright State Guardian
In the realm of hardware security research, this name stands out prominently: Dr. Fathi Amsaad. A visionary and dedicated researcher, Amsaad has been making waves with his groundbreaking contributions to the field of cybersecurity, hardware security, trustworthy AI and much more.
About Fathi Amsaad
Fathi Amsaad, a senior member at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, received his Ph.D. from the University of Toledo in Dec. 2017.
He is an assistant professor with a primary appointment in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering at Wright State University.
Amsaad established the Semiconductor Microelectronics Security, Assurance, Resilience and Trust (SMART) research laboratory at the Joshi Research Center. At the SMART lab, Amsaad and his research team—undergraduate and graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher—are interested in exploring and investigating new fundamental and applied research in circuits, hardware, security approaches, electronics and more.
Teaching
With over 15 years of teaching experience, Amsaad has taught at several U.S. high research institutions for over 10 years as well as six years abroad.
Amsaad worked as the graduate program coordinator and assistant professor at the School of Information Security and Applied Computing at Eastern Michigan University from Aug. 2019 to July 2022 before coming to Wright State University.
Prior to that, from Aug. 2018 to July 2019, he was an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to finishing his Ph.D., Amsaad held positions as a graduate teaching and research assistant at the University of Toledo, an adjunct instructor at Bowling Green State University and a visiting instructor at the University of South Florida from August 2016 to May 2017.
Amsaad has been incredibly involved in the research and teaching communities for over a decade.
“I love teaching, helping students with their study, project and research. That made me passionate about my Master’s and Ph.D.,” Amsaad said.
Research
During his time at WSU, Amsaad has taken an active part in joint research projects that have resulted in a total funding of about $33 million, including contributions from other partners in addition to WSU.
He is notably in charge of the $29.75 million AFRL grant known as the Assured and Trusted Digital Microelectronics Ecosystem (ADMETE). In addition, he oversees the National Pathway to Success (NPS), an initiative funded by a $704,000 grant from the National Security Agency.
In order to prepare, train and retain qualified professionals to meet the demands of emerging cybersecurity domains, this initiative represents a cooperative cybersecurity consortium.
Additionally, Intel Corporation supports the SMART lab, where Amsaad co-leads a three-year grant funded by the company.
This project specifically serves women, minorities, HBCUs/HSIs, high schools, community colleges, Indigenous people and other underrepresented groups in Ohio and the U.S.
The research in the SMART lab includes novel and state-of-the-art research in cyber and physical system security. Primitives for hardware security are included in this. They also conduct research on cyber-physical systems and supply chain security.
He is also co-PI for a different three-year Intel grant administered by the University of Cincinnati, which is called the Ohio-Southwest Alliance on Semiconductors and Integrated Scalable-Manufacturing (OASiS).
On top of this, Amsaad is a current member of the Association for Computing Machinery. His varied responsibilities include serving as an international conference and journal organizer, chair, technical program committee member, guest editor and member of the review board.
Additionally, Amsaad shares his knowledge by instructing in the areas of network administration, hardware security, distributed computing, digital systems, IoT and embedded systems security and security curricula.
How students can join Amsaad’s research
According to one of Amsaad’s students, Tashfi Nowroz, in Amsaad’s research lab, 10 students around the globe are working as research assistants who are pursuing their Master’s or Ph.D. It is a great opportunity for the international students who are eager to work in the research field.
“I try to see the passion and dedication of a student before hiring them as RA. Maybe they don’t know everything, but if they have the urge to keep trying and making the curve of development, I like to work with them,” Amsaad said.
Those who are interested in professor Amsaad’s work can reach out to him, the Computer Science and Engineering department or the Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering department.
