Skip to main content

electrical & computer engineering (ece) department

Damon Woodard

FINS Director, Professor

Before becoming a faculty member, Dr. Woodard was a Director of Central Intelligence postdoctoral fellow. His postdoctoral research focused on developing advanced iris recognition systems using high-resolution sensors. His research interests include biometrics/identity science and applied artificial intelligence (machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning, computer vision, and natural language processing). His current research projects include authorship attribution (stylometry) / computational behavioral analytics via text analytics and natural language processing, image analysis/machine learning-based hardware assurance (hardware trojan detection, counterfeit electronics detection), and adversarial machine learning (DeepFake detection).

Domenic Forte

FINS Associate Director, Professor & Steven A. Yatauro Faculty Fellow

Dr. Forte’s current research focuses on:

  • Traditional and AI-Enabled Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Tools, Metrics, and Rules for Hardware Security
  • Microelectronics Supply Chain Security and Assurance: Semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) Protection. Counterfeit Electronics Detection and Avoidance, Hardware Trojan Detection and Prevention, Reverse Engineering and Anti-reverse Engineering
  • Hardware Security Benchmarking: Test Article Generation and Data Augmentation
  • Countermeasures Against Physical Attacks
  • Hardware Security Primitive Design and Fabrication: Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs), True Random Number Generators (TRNGs), Chaogates
  • Biometrics: Authentication, Indexing, and Privacy.

Jie Fu

Lab Director & Assistant Professor

Dr. Fu’s lab focuses on developing intelligent and (semi-)autonomous systems through the integration of control theory, machine learning, and formal methods. At our lab, we aim to build trustworthy systems in complex decision-making and dynamic environments, in coordination with or under the supervision of human operators. The research contains several main areas: (1) Preference-aware decision making with human-on-the loop; (2) learning-enabled adaptive control and planning with complex temporal objectives; (3) game-theoretic design of provably correct autonomous systems. The applications include human-autonomy shared control, security and safety for cyber-physical systems, and cyber security. (CPSs).

Reiner Dizon-Paradis

Postdoctoral Research Associate

He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UF. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He is a member of the IEEE, ACM, TBP, and HKN. His research interests include machine learning applications in national security, hardware security and assurance, artificial intelligence of Things, and robotics.

Sanjeev Koppal

Lab Director & Associate Professor

Sanjeev J. Koppal is an Associate Professor at the University of Florida’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and is a Kent and Linda Fuchs Faculty Fellow. Sanjeev is the Director of the FOCUS Lab at UF. Since 2022, Sanjeev has been an Amazon Scholar with Amazon Robotics. His interests span computer vision, computational photography and optics, novel cameras and sensors, 3D reconstruction, physics-based vision, and active illumination. His lab builds vision sensing prototypes and demonstrates these in real-world settings outside the lab. His lab has been funded (including continuing funding) by the ONR, NSF, DHS, USDA and industry.

Ronald Wilson

Research Assistant Professor and Co-Director of AAIG

Ronald Wilson, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida in 2017 and 2021 respectively and, B.S. in aviation transport engineering from the Riga Technical University, Latvia in 2015. His research interests focus on using Artificial Intelligence for Vision-assisted Hardware Assurance on Integrated Circuits and Computational Behavioral Analytics for Identity Sciences using Natural Language Processing. He is a member of the IEEE and the Florida Institute for National Security. 

Alina Zare

Professor and Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Informatics Research Institute, Director of the Machine Learning and Sensing Lab

Alina Zare teaches and conducts research in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning as a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Florida. Dr. Zare’s research has focused primarily on developing machine learning algorithms to autonomously understand and process non-visual imagery. Her research work has included automated plant root phenotyping using visual and X-ray imagery, 3D reconstruction and analysis of X-ray micro-CT imagery, sub-pixel hyperspectral image analysis, target detection and underwater scene understanding using synthetic aperture sonar, LIDAR data analysis, Ground Penetrating Radar analysis, and buried landmine and explosive hazard detection. She earned her Ph.D. in December 2008 from the University of Florida. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Florida in 2016, Dr. Zare was faculty at the University of Missouri.