The SMART lab is dedicated to advancing the basic (fundamental) and applied research in Cyber and Physical System Security, Assurance, and Trust by fostering innovation and contributing to the state-of-the-art Cybersecurity topics including Hardware Security, IoT Security, Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), and Cyberdefense and Cyberinfrastructure Applications.

Dr. Amsaad and his research team, including postdoctoral and research associates, along with graduate and undergraduate students, are dedicated to the development and exploration of novel and cutting-edge hardware security research. This includes hardware security primitives such as SRAM/DRAM PUFs, TRNGs, and lightweight hardware-based authentication and cryptography. We are committed to analyzing Zero Trust solutions for IC supply chain security, assurance, resilience, and trust. Our research encompasses AI-assisted methodologies for hardware Trojan detection and mitigation, PCB Trojan detection, and fault injection attack detection, including laser fault injections.

Furthermore, the SMART lab research team continually explores and investigates new research avenues, including integrated hardware/software obfuscation, trusted heterogeneous integration and packaging, and cybersecurity for IoT/IIoT/IoMT. Our interests also encompass AI and blockchain-enabled cryptography, federated and deep learning for medical and biological applications, as well as the development of efficient, secure, and trusted AI distributed and cloud computing solutions.

Throughout his tenure at Wright State, Dr. Amsaad has actively administered, participated in, or received collaborative research initiatives/grants leading to a cumulative funding over $30 Millions, including contributions from various partners alongside Wright State University. His research/educational activities received funding from both government agencies and industry including AFRL/AFOSR, DoD, NSF, NSA, SOCHE (Southwestern Ohio Council for Hihger Education), Intel Corporation, and Infoscitex Corporation (IST).

Dr. Amsaad is committed to cybersecurity research, education, and future workforce development. As part of his strong commitment to workforce development, Dr. Amsaad serves as the Principal Investigator (PI) of three federally funded projects (one AFRL project and two NSA projects). Additionally, he leads or co-leads two other workforce development projects funded by Intel Corporation.

Dr. Amsaad serves as the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Assured and Trusted Digital Microelectronics Ecosystem (ADMETE/ADMETE Minor), a $29.75 million grant, led by Wright State University. This 4-years grant (2020 – 2024) is generously supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) within the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB): Sensors Directorate/Trusted Systems Branch. The ADMETE efforts mainly focus on ensuring an assured and trusted in microelectronics and Air Force and military applications. It aims to build an ecosystem between multiple academic institutions, the Air Force, and industry needed to prepare a skilled workforce and researchers capable of effectively navigating the cybersecurity challenges related to trusted and assured microelectronics. ADMETE team comprises Wright State University, the University of Akron, Youngstown State University, Ohio University, the University of Toledo, and Lorain County Community College. As the program expands, the University of Dayton has joined this great effort in 2023, and we anticipate the inclusion of other academic institutions to further strengthen its reach and impact.

Dr. Amsaad leads, the Principal investigator (PI), the National Pathway to Success (NPS) grant, a two-year (June 2023 – June 2025) STEM Cybersecurity educational grant ($704K) awarded by the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) program within the National Security Agency (NSA). The grant has the potential for an additional year of extension ($332K), increasing the total funding to ($1.036 million) over a three-year period, until June 2026. This initiative represents a collaborative cybersecurity consortium aimed at preparing, training, and retaining skilled professionals to meet the demands of emerging Cybersecurity domains. NPS aims to equip students with cybersecurity skills essential for defending against cyber threats targeting various sectors. Through a consortium of seven four-year institutions and six community colleges, the program will offer education and training in areas such as network security, information assurance, hardware security, assurance, and trust, and AI-enabled cybersecurity. Targeting groups like community college students and underrepresented demographics, the program will provide workshops, competitions, and online classes to enhance cybersecurity education nationwide. In addition to workshops and seminars, the program offers cyber competitions and interactive sessions, student-led panels, and informative speeches by government agencies like the Department of Defense (DoD), National Security Agency (NSA), Air Force (AF), and industry partners. These initiatives aim to foster interest in cybersecurity and support the seamless transition of community college students into four-year baccalaureate degree programs, helping to bridge the gap between academia and industry while enhancing career pathways with the Department of Defense (DoD). He is the WSU PI of an NSA-NCAE workforce development grant led by the Center for Cybersecurity at University of Purdue Northwest Cybersecurity Center for Cybersecurity (PNW), an NSA/DHS Designated National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber-Defense Education. Leveraging his expertise, Dr. Amsaad contributes to this workforce development project by building new workforce development and training curriculum in the area of AI semiconductor microelectronics security and trust.

Dr. Amsaad is part of two other workforce development projects funded by (Intel) Corporation. He serves as the WSU Principal investigators (PI) of a 3-year (2023-2025) intel grant in collaboration between Intel, Central State University (CSU), and WSU. This project, Central State University Semiconductor Education and Research Program (CSU SERP), is funded by Intel Corporation and focuses on supporting semiconductor curriculum development, training, and research efforts. Particularly, this endeavor caters to High Schools, Community Colleges, HBCUs/HSIs, minorities, women, Native Americans, and other underrepresented groups in Ohio and the US. Additionally, he is a Co-Principal investigator (Co-PI) on another 3-year Intel funded grant, the Ohio-Southwest Alliance on Semiconductors and Integrated Scalable-Manufacturing (OASiS), led by the University of Cincinnati.

In addition to his strong commitment to workforce development, Dr. Amsaad is keen on advancing knowledge and contributing to cutting-edge research at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of cybersecurity and trusted and assured microelectronics. At the undergraduate research level, Dr. Amsaad leads an Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) National Science Foundation (NSF) project as the Principal Investigator (PI), namely: Training Research for Undergraduate Students in Secure and Trusted Systems (WSU/TRUST). TRUST is​​​​ a ($367K) NSF undergraduate research award with approximately ($166K) awarded to Wright State University (WSU) for establishing a collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. It is a collaborative effort led by Wright State University (WSU) in partnership with the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) and the University of Kansas Center for Research (UKCR) to establish a collaborative REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) site jointly hosted at WSU and AFIT. This REU program aims to engage undergraduate students in research projects related to secure microelectronic applications over a three-year period during the summer (2025 – 2027). The focus of the research projects will be on addressing cybersecurity challenges in areas such as IoT, AI security, side-channel attacks, and hardware-based authentication. This competitive award, granted by the NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, receives joint support from the Division of Undergraduate Education within the NSF Directorate for STEM Education, as well as the Awards to Stimulate and Support Undergraduate Research Experiences (ASSURE) program within the U.S. Department of Defense/Air Force Office of Scientific Research (DoD/AFOSR).

Dr. Amsaad also serves as the Principal investigator (PI) of a seconed NSF project in collaboration with the NSF IUCRC Center for Hardware and Embedded Systems Security and Trust (NSF CHEST) for a collaborative cutting edge research in the area of ML-assisted techniques for the detection and localization of run-time IC hardware Trojan modification attacks. He also leads collaborative research project with the AFRL in conjunction with Infoscitex Corporation (IST), a prominent provider of technology services to the Defense and Intelligence communities,  that supports cutting-edge research at Wright State University focused on Trustworthy AI. The research activities at the SMART lab are also supported by the Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE) through the Defense Associated Graduate Student Innovators (DAGSI). This support funds machine learning research projects related to Embedded AI, TinyML for Information Fusion of Space Data, and Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning. Dr. Amsaad is one of the 2023 U.S. Department of the Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (2023 SFFP Awardees) sponsored by the AFRL/AFOSR.

Dr. Amsaad imparts his expertise through teaching in domains including hardware security, IoT and embedded systems security, distributed computing, digital systems, and network administration and security curricula. Dr. Amsaad has been recently recognized by the University as the recipient of the 2023-2024 Presidential Award for Excellence (Faculty Excellence/Early Career Achievement) award that acknowledges junior faculty excelling in teaching, scholarship, and service within their first four years. During his time at Eastern Michigan University (EMU), he received three competitive internal funding awards, the 2022 Summer Research Awards (SRA), 2022 Faculty Research and Creative Activity Fellowships (FRF), 2020 Culture of Research Excellence (CoRE) Grant Writing Program, and the Faculty First Research Award (FFRA) from the Game Above Capital Organization. At his time at EMU, he received more than $100K as Seed/Startup Funding through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). He also received $150K in start-up funding during his time as an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM).

Beyond his research commitments, Dr. Amsaad is an active IEEE Senior and ACM member. He serves as the advisor for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Student Organization at Wright State University. Also, he is the advisor of the Nepalese Student Association  (NSA-WSU) at Wright State University. His multifaceted roles encompass those of Organizer, Program Chair, Technical Program Committee Member, Section Editror, Guest Editor, and Reviewer Board Member for various international conferences and journals.

Following are sample research projects that provide some insight into his areas of interest:

– Semiconductor Microelectronic Supply Chain Assurance and Trust

Semiconductor Integrated Circuits (ICs) are essential in modern technology applications, including microelectronics, critical smart infrastructure, IoT consumer electronics, connected aerial and ground vehicles, radar, sensors, military applications, and communication networking devices. The increase in demand with inadequate workforce and infrastructure in domestic production, as well as the reliance on a limited number of trusted semiconductor vendors to meet technological demands, has led to the globalization of the semiconductor IC supply chain. The IC semiconductor integrated circuits’ life cycle includes specification, foundry/clean room fabrication, packaging, and testing. Vendors across the globe engage in semiconductor IC manufacturing design, fabrication, testing, validation, and integration. This globalized supply chain introduces the involvement of untrusted entities, blurring the lines of IC assurance and trust to the forefront. The emergence of malicious hardware design alterations, whether integrated during chip design, fabrication, or packaging, poses a significant threat. Supply chain hardware attacks include hardware Trojans, fault injections, physical tampering, side-channel analysis, and their potential negative impact on system reliability and operability. Additionally, these attacks can lead to the possible stealing/leaking of secret information, destroying operational deployment. Our research in this area aims to propose new security approaches to countermeasures against such attacks, as the current approach relies on trust in the design house or foundry. We explore novel “Zero Trust” strategies throughout the design and fabrication process to confront the menace of hardware attacks targeting COTS components, PCB designs, FPGA/ASICs, microprocessors, and SRAM Memory devices.

–  Heterogeneous System Integration and Advanced Packaging Security 

Chip design and integration are essential for Heterogeneous System Integration (HSI). For example, AI applications utilize Heterogeneous 2.5-D and 3-D system integration to develop efficient and low-power computing and memory technology design. System integration fosters enhanced compaction in interconnect length, reducing delays and power consumption. This innovation further facilitates stacking multiple planes, dedicating them to specific functions such as digital/imaging signal processing, memory, interconnection, and communication applications. Our research focuses on Secure, Trusted, and Assured Heterogeneous System Integration and Packaging. This includes novel AI-assisted design approaches, lightweight and low-power hardware security measures, and authentication primitives to ensure trust in HSI. We analyze the impact of diverse physical attacks, such as hardware Trojans, fault injections, and physical tampering, and propose innovative techniques like lightweight PUFs, design obfuscation, and side channel resistant Designs to counter such hardware security threats, thereby bolstering the reliability and assurance of system-in-package components.

–  Hardware Side Channel Analysis and Security Countermeasures

Semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) are vulnerable to both invasive and non-invasive hardware attacks, including laser/optical probing, fault injection, and electromagnetic side-channel (EM) attacks. Our research interests explore an ML-assisted approach for the identification and mitigation of hardware vulnerabilities utilized by EM side-channel leakage attacks. EM-side channel emissions constitute a significant avenue for data leakage, jeopardizing the security of hardware devices. These emissions manifest in forms such as electromagnetic (EM), power, or thermal signals and can be exploited by attackers to extract secure and private information from hardware devices. Current research shows that existing ML approaches rely heavily on static techniques to localize side channel leakage and require assistance to detect complex patterns caused by side channel leakage attacks. Furthermore, these approaches need more resilience against adversarial ML attacks. We focus on designing hardware with robust countermeasures against EM side-channel attacks to mitigate such hardware security challenges. To overcome these shortcomings, we propose developing a robust ML-assisted security framework for enhanced data feature extraction and attention-based fusion modeling. This framework is poised to fortify hardware security and trust against physical side-channel attacks, explicitly targeting secret keys and hardware-based identification leakage.