Welcome
I am an Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity at the School of Interdisciplinary Informatics (Si2), University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). I earned my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Old Dominion University (ODU) in 2024, under the guidance of Dr. Chunsheng Xin and Dr. Hongyi (Michael) Wu. Prior to joining UNO, I served as a lecturer in cybersecurity at Old Dominion University starting in 2019. I also hold a B.S. in Communication Engineering from Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications (CQUPT), China (2014), and an M.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Old Dominion University (2017).
My Research Interest
- Cybersecurity & Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Wireless Communication
- 5G/NextG Technology
- GNSS-Based Localization System
- Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)
- Autonomous Vehicles
- Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
- Smart Agriculture
Prospective Ph.D. Students
I am actively seeking motivated Ph.D. students to join my research group. Students will work on the projects on cybersecurity, AI-driven cyber-physical systems, autonomous vehicles, V2X, and multi-modal sensing, with opportunities to work on NSF- and state-funded projects and collaborate with researchers across institutions.
Preferred background and qualifications:
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science (CS), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), or a closely related field
- Experience or strong interest in wireless communication, communication networks, or networking systems
- Experience with or interest in AI/ML/DL, especially applied to cyber-physical systems
- Hands-on experience with experiments, system implementation, or data-driven research is a plus
- Strong programming skills (e.g., Python, C/C++, or related languages)
Prospective students are encouraged to email me their CV, transcripts, and a brief statement of research interests.
Recent News
Sep 2026: Ph.D. Student Zhiyuan Chen's First Paper Published in IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Letters
I am excited to share that my Ph.D. student, Zhiyuan Chen, who joined our team this summer, has published his first work in IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Letters (L-SMC). The paper addresses an often-overlooked bottleneck in autonomous multi-camera perception systems: data overload. When edge platforms such as the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin are overwhelmed with video frames, the system drops frames randomly and leaves surviving frames waiting in stale queues. To address this, we developed VISTA, a lightweight pre-inference admission framework that prioritizes frames based on freshness and service history instead of random frame loss. In physical runs, VISTA reduced processing delay from 244 ms to 92 ms while maintaining 92% throughput. Incredibly proud of Zhiyuan for hitting the ground running this summer!
Read the early-access paper: VISTA: Value-Driven Inference Scheduling for Timely Autonomous Multi-Camera Perception.
Read the early-access paper: VISTA: Value-Driven Inference Scheduling for Timely Autonomous Multi-Camera Perception.
Aug 2026: Attending the 7th NSF SaTC PI Meeting in College Park, Maryland
I am attending the 7th NSF Security, Privacy, and Trust in Cyberspace (SaTC) Principal Investigators' Meeting, August 6-7, 2026, in College Park, Maryland, where I am presenting the Year 1 progress of our NSF CRII project MUSE: Multi-Modal Security Enhancement for Cyber-Resilient UAV Operation (Award #2451471).
View the poster.
View the poster.
Jul 2026: Cybersecurity Perspective Featured in First Alert 6 (WOWT) Story on Amazon Drone Deliveries
As Amazon Prime Air prepared to launch drone deliveries in the Papillion area, I spoke with First Alert 6 (WOWT) about the cybersecurity perspective on delivery drones, including potential attack surfaces and how greater transparency about the technology and data protections can help build public confidence in drone delivery services.
Read the news coverage.
Read the news coverage.
Jul 2026: New NRI Grant Awarded for Nebraska Agricultural Camera Networking
Our project NE-AGCAMNET: Nebraska Agricultural Camera Networking for High-Fidelity Plant Health Monitoring has been funded by the Nebraska Research Initiative (NRI) for 2026-2027. Led by Dr. Xiaoqian Zhang (PI) with me as Co-PI, the project extends our work on secure wireless sensing to field-deployed camera networks for plant health monitoring in Nebraska agriculture. This is our second NRI project together, following the ongoing project on IoT wireless networks and federated learning-based rate adaptation.
Jun 2026: Welcome Zhiyuan Chen, the First Ph.D. Student of the ASTAR Lab
Zhiyuan Chen has joined the ASTAR Lab as its first Ph.D. student. His research focuses on timely and trustworthy multi-camera perception and inference scheduling for autonomous systems on embedded platforms. Welcome aboard, Zhiyuan!
Feb 2026: UNO Drone Security Research Featured by First Alert 6 (WOWT)
Our ongoing research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Information Science & Technology on improving drone security was featured by First Alert 6 (WOWT). The story highlights early research efforts aimed at strengthening the security and resilience of drones, particularly in the context of public safety applications such as Omaha’s Drones as First Responders program.
Read the news coverage.
Read the news coverage.
Jan 2026: Lead Facilitator at the T3-CIDERS Winter Institute 2026, University of Arizona
I served as Lead Facilitator for the T3-CIDERS Winter Institute 2026, held January 5-9 at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Supported by the NSF CyberTraining program, this five-day train-the-trainer institute builds advanced cyberinfrastructure skills, including HPC, big data, machine learning, cryptography, and parallel programming, for cybersecurity research and education. I coordinated and led the training sessions and mentoring activities for the second cohort of future trainers.
Learn more about T3-CIDERS.
Learn more about T3-CIDERS.
Dec 2025: Paper Accepted at IEEE PerCom 2026, Pisa, Italy. Merry Christmas!
Our paper, D-SYNC: Enhancing Vehicle Localization with Dashcam-Satellite Image Synchronization, has been accepted to IEEE PerCom 2026, a premier conference on pervasive computing, with an acceptance rate of 15.62%.
Oct 2025: Received the UNO Research and Creative Activity Award
I am honored to receive the Research and Creative Activity Award from the University of Nebraska at Omaha Office of Research and Creative Activity (ORCA) on October 23, 2025.
Oct 2025: Serving as Symposium Chair at IEEE ICNC 2026
I am honored to serve as the Edge Computing, Cloud Computing, and Big Data (ECB) Symposium Chair and Workshop Chair for IEEE ICNC 2026. See you in Maui in February 2026!
July 2025: NSF CRII Award Granted for UAV Security Research
I am grateful to share the news that my NSF CRII (CNS/SaTC) award on UAV Security has been granted. This award will support my research on enhancing the security of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems. I appreciate the support from NSF and look forward to advancing research in this important area.
June 2025: Grant Awarded for Enhancing Security and Trustworthiness in V2X Systems
I am excited to announce that I have been awarded a University of Nebraska Collaboration Initiative Grant for my project, TRUST-V2X: Enhancing Security and Trustworthiness of AI in Multi-Modal Collaborative Sensing for Autonomous Vehicles to Everything. This grant, funded by the Nebraska Research Initiative, supports collaborative research across the University of Nebraska system. Our team includes faculty from UNO and UNL with expertise in wireless communication, cybersecurity, robotics, and autonomous driving systems. In this project, the project team will focus on improving the security and reliability of AI-driven collaborative sensing in autonomous vehicle networks, with an emphasis on real-world V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) applications. I am currently seeking motivated Ph.D. students to join our research team. If you are interested in cybersecurity, AI, or autonomous systems, please contact me for more information.
April 2025: Open Graduate Assistant (GA) Position - Fall 2025
I am thrilled to share an open Graduate Assistant (GA) position starting in Fall 2025. This position will focus on the security and trustworthiness of UAV operations.
I am seeking talented and motivated students with a strong interest in Cybersecurity, Autonomous Systems, and other related fields. Please feel free to contact me for more details.
I am seeking talented and motivated students with a strong interest in Cybersecurity, Autonomous Systems, and other related fields. Please feel free to contact me for more details.