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People

Director

Sandip Ray

 Email: sandip@ece.ufl.edu
Warren B. Nelms Endowed Professor
Director of Industrial Programs, Warren B. Nelms Institute for Connected World

Ph.D. Students

Bhagawat Yedla

 Email: b.yedlaravi@ufl.edu

Bhagawat is currently pursuing his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received his Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida. He has 2 years of end to end product design and development experience with consumer electronics and automotive systems. His research interests include connected and autonomous vehicle systems, computer vision, and novel IoT device design. He loves sketching, painting, making comic books, playing cricket, swimming, taking apart electronics and piecing them back to build new gadgets.

Chengwei (Derek) Duan

 Email: duan.c@ufl.edu

Chengwei Duan is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in the ECE department at the University of Florida. His research interest is on the cybersecurity of connected and autonomous vehicle applications. He likes basketball, swimming, cooking and listening to music in his spare time.

Sumaiya Afroz Mila

 Email: mila.s@ufl.edu

Sumaiya Afroz Mila received her Bachelor’s degree in CSE from Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), Dhaka, Bangladesh and is currently pursuing her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Sandip Ray. After her graduation, she joined MIST as a lecturer of the Department of CSE. Her research interest is in IoT devices and Machine learning applications in healthcare. In her leisure time, she loves playing with her pet cat, watching movies, series and listening to classical Bengali songs.

Kazi Mejbaul Islam

 Email: kmejbaulislam@ufl.edu

Kazi Mejbaul Islam completed his Master’s in Computer Science from Florida State University and Bachelor’s in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh. He is pursuing his PhD in RISING lab under the supervision of Dr. Sandip Ray. Currently, he is working with security of deep learning accelerator. Besides academia, he likes playing soccer, guitar and long drive.

Tambiara Tabassum

 Email: tambiaratabassum@ufl.edu

Tambiara Tabassum is currently pursuing her Doctoral degree under the supervision of Dr. Sandip Ray at the University of Florida. She received her B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh and she got her MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Florida Polytechnic University, Lakeland, Florida. Her research interest is in SoC architecture and security and high performance computing. Apart from academia and research, Tambiara is an Indian semi-classical dancer and in her free time, she enjoys cooking, binge watching TV shows, and napping.

Ankan Ghosh

 Email: ghoshankan@ufl.edu
Ankan Ghosh is a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, where he also completed his Master’s thesis under Dr. Sandip Ray. His research spans machine learning, digital twins, and explainable AI, with prior work in wearable-based gait analysis and knee rehabilitation monitoring systems, and current work focused on interpretable ML for avionics, designing advisory frameworks where pilots can understand and act on AI recommendations in safety-critical scenarios. He holds a B.Tech in Computer Science from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology. Outside the lab, Ankan is proudly Bengali — football and good food are non-negotiable. An admirer of Andrés Iniesta, he also enjoys exploring new places, outdoor activities, and immersing himself in anime and music.

M.S. Students

Hrithik Das

 Email: hdas@ufl.edu
Hrithik Das is a Master’s student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, and he has recently joined the Rising Lab to focus on automotive security research. His academic foundation includes a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from California State University, Northridge. His research interests are acutely centered on the evolving landscape of vehicle technology, encompassing security for connected and software-defined vehicles, hardware security, and rigorous security verification. Prior to his master’s studies, Hrithik accumulated professional experience as a Systems Engineer at Denso Ten America Limited. In this capacity, he oversaw the development of Navigation and Voice Assistant features for next-generation infotainment systems for a major Japanese OEM. Beyond his technical pursuits, Hrithik maintains a keen personal interest in the automotive world. He is also an enthusiastic traveler, having explored 44 states across the U.S., and finds balance in his free time through reading, listening to music, and cooking.

Ph.D. Alumni

 
 
 
Student
Dissertation
 
Graduation
 
First Position
Kelsey Horace-Herron Portable Spectroscopic Methods for Non-destructive Material Detection and Substance Authentication August 2026 Jackson State University, Assistant Professor
Dipal Haldar From Protection to Enforcement: The System Interconnect as the Foundation
of Trustworthy Microelectronics		 May 2026 Texas Instruments
Tashfia Alam Trustworthy System-On-Chip Designs with Integrated Hardware-Software Components August 2024 Caspia Technologies
Md Rafiul Kabir Digital Twin Exploration Platforms for IoT Applications of High Global Impact August 2024 Central Michigan University, Assistant Professor
Richard Olatomiwa Owoputi Resiliency of Distributed Multi-Agent Systems to Cyber-Attacks May 2024 Volvo Cars
Maneesh Merugu CAD for Security Instrumentation and Verification of Modern Microelectronics May 2024 AMD Inc.
Kshitij Raj Architecture and Validation of Secure System-On-Chip Designs May 2024 Intel Corporation
Xiangru Chen Architecture Support for Increasing Usability of Edge Intelligence December 2023 ByteDance Ltd.
Srivalli Boddupalli Resiliency of Connected Autonomous Vehicle Applications Against
Perception Security Adversaries		 December 2022 Lucid Motors
Jiaqi Zhang Overcoming Challenges in Universal Deep Learning Deployment August 2022 AMD Inc.
Atul Prasad Deb Nath (Co-supervised with S. Bhunia.) Resilient Architectures for System-on-Chip Platform Security Assurance May 2021 Qualcomm Inc.

 

M.S. Alumni

 

 
Student
Graduation
First Position
Emmanuel Elias December 2025 AMD Inc.
Ceenu Shaji May 2024 Caspia Technologies
Tashfique Hasnine Choudhury August 2023 Caspia Technologies
Darshith Madvinkodi Prakash December 2022 Microchip Technology, Inc.
Venkata Sai Gireesh Chamarthi December 2022 Intel Corporation
Neha Mishra August 2021 Joined M.S. Program on IoT, University at Buffalo
Arrush Hegde May 2021 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Ashwini Hegde May 2021 Apple Inc.
Indira Bhoomareddy Ramaiah May 2021 Qualcomm Inc.
Sai Shanmukh Chinimilli May 2021 Qualcomm Inc.
Venkata Adithya Nimmagadda May 2021 Intel Corporation
Kshitij Raj May 2020 Continued as Ph.D. student
Akash Someshwar Rao May 2020 Qualcomm Inc.