Research Centers and Labs

The Center for Trusted, Accelerated, and Secure Computing and Communication (C-TASC) is a multidisciplinary research center with overarching research spanning the cybersecurity, hardware security, accelerated computing, and machine learning domains. C-TASC's goal is to establish long-term partnerships and collaboration with the industry, academia, and government. Our mission is to provide the best training and education for student members, preparing them as the expert workforce to tackle challenging security, computing, and learning problems of the future for our industrial and government partners.

The Wireless Cyber Center (WirelessCyber@Mason) is a chartered multidisciplinary research center under the College of Engineering and Computing. The center comprises top-notch researchers from multiple departments, including ECE, CS, CYSE, CEIE, GGS, and OTT, with diverse expertise and backgrounds. Its mission is to act as an internationally recognized leading research group in the wireless and cybersecurity domain and foster cross-disciplinary research both within Mason and across the globe. The current focused research areas include secure 5G/FutureG wireless communications and networking, AI-powered cybersecurity, security and privacy of generative AI, virtual reality, wireless cyber-physical systems/Internet of Things (IoT) security and privacy, and socio-economic analysis of emerging technologies.

The CNL Lab, under director Bijan Jabbari, focuses on com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works and sys­tems, with an em­pha­sis on the­ory, ar­chi­tec­ture, mod­el­ing, per­for­mance analy­sis, mutli-ac­cess, mo­bil­ity, rout­ing and switch­ing, tele­traf­fic, and pro­to­cols

Cur­rent ar­eas of re­search in­clude:

• Rout­ing and path com­pu­ta­tion in op­ti­cal net­works.
• Op­ti­mal re­source al­lo­ca­tion in wire­less net­works.
• High-per­for­mance com­puter net­works and ap­pli­ca­tions.

The Computer Architecture, Machine Learning, and Security (CAMLsec) Lab, under director Khaled N. Khasawneh, conducts research on machine learning for security, machine learning security & privacy, microarchitecture security, and hardware support for security. Current research topics include:

• Adversarial machine learning 
• Privacy-preserving machine learning 
• Malware detection 
• Side channel attacks
• Transient execution attacks
• IoT security 

The CERG Group, under directors Kris Gaj and Jens-Peter Kaps, covers all as­pects of im­ple­ment­ing cryp­to­graphic al­go­rithms in hard­ware and/or soft­ware, ranging from:

• High-per­for­mance im­ple­men­ta­tions to ul­tra-low power im­ple­men­ta­tions of pub­lic key and se­cret key al­go­rithms.
• Fault-tol­er­ant im­ple­men­ta­tions.
• At­tack-re­sis­tant im­ple­men­ta­tion.
• Im­ple­men­ta­tions of at­tacks.

The CubeSat/SatCom Engineering lab, under director Peter Pachowicz, focuses on hands-on engineering of ultra-small CubeSats and satellite communications systems by combining research and educational objectives. Lab facilities include:

• CubeSat Development and Testing Lab.
• SatCom Ground Station (VHF/UHF/S-band antenna system).
• Space Communication Station (9.1m dish).

Most hardware and software is designed and built though multiple undergraduate, graduate, and student club projects. Researchers' work covers a broad spectrum of topics such as:

• Development of ultra-small CubeSats.
• Resilient satellite bus architectures.
• Hybrid power systems.
• Rad-hard embedded software.
• Low-noise antennas, signal and data fusion.
• Custom software defined radios.

Researchers in the HArt lab, under director Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao, study computer architecture security using machine learning to create, detect, and defend emerging security threats on computing systems, including side-channel attacks and malware threats in stand-alone and connected IoT devices.

They are also investigating:

• In-memory computing for deep learning architectures.
• Accelerator design for machine learning applications.
• Architecting advanced adversarial threats and defenses for convolutional neural networks.
• Graph neural networks.
• Deep neural networks.

The Mason Nano Lab is managed by  Ethan Ahn, and focuses on emerging nanoscale materials and device technologies. Current research topics include:

• Energy-efficient logic and memory devices for future computing paradigm
• Carbon-based and other nanoscale low-dimensional materials (e.g. CNT, graphene, Transition Metal Dichalcogenide, etc.)
• Experimental and computational exploration of emerging nanoscale devices with emphasis on carrier transport (electron/phonon/spin)
• Beyond-Si CMOS electronics including spintronics, steep-subthreshold electronics, oxide electronics, and energy conversion and harvesting

The NAPL Lab, under director Brian L. Mark,  con­ducts re­search on the de­sign, ar­chi­tec­ture, and per­for­mance of com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works, en­com­pass­ing wire­line, wire­less, and het­ero­ge­neous net­works. Research covers all as­pects of net­work ar­chi­tec­ture, from the phys­i­cal layer to the ap­pli­ca­tion layer, which includes:

• De­vel­op­ment of the­o­ret­i­cal re­sults.
• Al­go­rithm de­sign.
• Nu­mer­i­cal com­pu­ta­tion.
• Com­puter sim­u­la­tion.
• Hard­ware and/or soft­ware de­vel­op­ment.

The Neural Engineering Lab, under director Nathalia Peixoto, focuses on the de­vel­op­ment of pros­thetic de­vices (or parts of de­vices) to help peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, par­tic­u­larly with patholo­gies of the ner­vous sys­tem. The lab also studies neu­ronal cell cul­tures and biosen­sors.

The Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing Group, which is a team of graduate students led by Pro­fes­sor Kath­leen Wage, works on multi-dis­ci­pli­nary prob­lems that re­quire a syn­the­sis of ar­ray pro­cess­ing, acoustics, and oceanog­ra­phy. The group focuses on:

• Ran­dom ma­trix the­ory.
• Sparse ar­ray de­sign.
• Deep-wa­ter am­bi­ent noise.
• Mode prop­a­ga­tion.

The work is funded by the Of­fice of Naval Re­search.

The PRL, under director Maryam Parsa, focuses on developing next generation of neuro-inspired algorithms, neuromorphic computing, and distributed collaborative learning. Current research topics include:

• Bayesian Brain
• Physics-Informed Neuromorphic Computing
• Multi-objective Bayesian-Evolutionary Optimization
• Novel Bio-Inspired Paradigms
• Computational Neuroscience
• Full-Stack Omnidirectional Cognitive Computing
• Neuromorphic Computing for Distributed Learning
• Algorithm-Hardware Codesign
• Safe Lifelong Learning

The JQub Lab, under director Weiwen Jiang, focuses on automated machine learning, embedded systems, domain-specific computing and quantum computing. Current research topics include:

• Quantum Machine learning
• Quantum Data Privacy
• Quantum Sensing
• Automated neural network design
• Automated hardware-software co-design

The WICL Lab, under director Kai Zeng, conducts research in wireless security and cyber-physical system security and privacy. Current research areas include:

• 5G cybersecurity.
• Cyber-physical system/Internet of Things security.
• Wireless physical layer security.
• Spectrum-sharing system security and privacy.
• Edge-computing security and privacy with applications of machine learning.
• Cryptography.
• Information theory.
• Optimization techniques.

The In­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary Biomedical Imaging Lab conducts translational research using imaging to investigate pathophysiology and function. One overarching focus is the investigation of brain-body interactions through imaging. In particular, we are studying the interactions between the central and peripheral nervous system and the musculoskeletal system in a number of clinical conditions of major public health significance, such as chronic pain, stroke, spinal cord injury, and amputation.

This interdisciplinary group conducts pre-clinical research for developing new technology and translational research on human subjects. The group uses state-of-the-art ultrasound and laser instrumentation for developing new ultrasound, optical, and hybrid imaging techniques.

Our research has potential applications in noninvasive diagnosis, screening, and treatment monitoring for a number of diseases, as well as for understanding the underlying mechanisms of disease. Principal investigators: Siddhartha Sikdar and Parag Chitnis. Peterson Family Health Sciences Hall, Room 3300.