Grants | Institute of Networking Security and Research

Co-PI (With La Porta and Miller), “Deception and Learning in a Contested Multidomain Environment”, Army Research Lab, $1.14 million. 6/1/2024 – 5/31/2026.
PI, “Software Hardware Co-Design for Enabling True Virtual Reality on Mobile Devices,” NSF, $300,000, 7/1/2022 – 6/30/2025.
PI, “NPU-based Architecture for Accelerating Deep Learning on Mobile Devices,” NSF, $500,000, 10/1/2021-9/30/2025.
Co-PI (With La Porta and Araujo), Learning in Agile SDN-based Honeynets, Army Research Lab, $1.5 million. 2020-2023. (This is part of the CRA project).
PI, “Energy-Aware and QoE-Aware Video Streaming on Mobile Devices, NSF, $500,000, 9/1/2018-5/31/2022.
Co-PI (with other 15 people), Collaborative Technology Alliance Network Sciences Communications Network Academic Research Center, Army Research Lab, $35M. 2009-2019.
PI, Resource-Aware Crowdsourcing inWireless Networks, NSF, $503,522, 10/1/2014- 9/30/2017.
PI, Resilient and Efficient Data Access in Cognitive Radio Networks, NSF, $460,762, 10/1/2013-12/31/2016.
PI (With La Porta), Efficient Energy-Aware Web Browsing in Wireless Networks, NSF, $406,000, 9/1/2012-8/31/2015.

PI, Sign-to-Speech: An Edge-IoT Platform and Software Library for Real Time Sign Language Recognition, NSF, $500,000, 3/1/2021 – 2/28/2026
PI, I-Corps:One ring to rule them all: A smartring for finger motion analytics and healthcare applications, NSF, $50,000, 9/1/2023 – 8/31/2024
Co-PI (with other 2 people), SHF: Medium: Exploring an Edge Platform Design Trajectory for Next Generation XR, NSF, $1,200,000, 10/1/2022 – 9/30/2025
PI, CNS Core: Small: Collaborative Research: IoTScope: Sensing Physical Materials via Inexpensive IoT Radios, NSF, $250,000, 10/1/2020 – 9/30/2024
Co-PI (with other 1 person), CNS Core: Medium: When Next Generation Wireless Networks Meet Machine Learning, NSF, $800,000, 10/1/2020 – 9/30/2024
PI, CNS Core: Small: Collaborative Research: A Motion Tracking Library for Sports Analytics, NSF, $250,000, 10/1/2019 – 9/30/2023

Collaborative Technology Alliance Network Sciences Communications Network Academic Research Center, Overall PI and Center Director ARL, $35M, 2009–2018 (renewed in 2014). (Penn State Amount for 9/08–9/16 is $7.7M).
HDTRA1-10-1-0085: State Estimation and Optimal Recovery in networks with Massive Disruption and Cascading Failures, PI (Co-PI: Cao and Swami [US-ARL]), Defense Threat Reduction Agency, (option years added in 2014) $1,650,000, 8/10–5/16.
International Technology Alliance, US Army Research Lab & UK Ministry of Defense, PI, $2.5M, 5/06–5/16. Collaborative Research Alliance, Co-PI (PI: McDaniel), ARL, up to $48M ($600K for La Porta), 2013–2022.

PI, “EAGER: TaskDCL: Collaborative Research: IMPACT: Interactive Mixed-Reality-Based Platform for AI-Driven Adaptive and Collaborative Task Training Environments”, led by Penn State, National Science Foundation, 9/15/2024 – 8/31/2026
Co-PI, “VeriPro: Verified Probabilistic Cognitive Reasoning for Tactical Mixed Reality Systems”, led by Gary Tan@ Penn State, DARPA, 6/21/2024 – 6/24/2027
PI, “Collaborative Research: CPS: Medium: Crowd-Sourced 3D Geospatial Digital Twin for Cyber-Physical Systems”, National Science Foundation, 6/15/2024 – 5/31/2027
PI, “Efficient Synchronized Communication for Coordinated Group Action in Multi-hop Wireless Networks”, Army Research Office, 3/12/2024 – 3/11/2027
Co-PI, “Regional-Scale Showcase of An Integrated Methane Sensing Network in the Anadarko Basin (AIMNet)”, Led by Binbin Weng@University of Oklahoma, Department of Energy, 9/15/2023 – 9/14/2027
PI, Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Medium: Foundations and Scalable Algorithms for Personalized and Collaborative Virtual Reality Over Wireless Networks,NSF,10/1/2021 – 09/30/2025
PI, CAREER: Wireless Collaborative Mixed Reality Networking: Foundations and Algorithms for Joint Communication, Computation, and Learning, NSF, 05/15/2020 – 05/14/2025

NSF CNS-2339848 CAREER: Enhancing Practical Defense Mechanisms against Memory Errors and Attacks
NSF CNS-2247652 SaTC: CORE: Small: Automatic Identification of Privilege-guard Variables for Data-only Attacks and Defenses

Senior Personnel, Convergence Accelerator: Track G: Securely Operating Through 5G Infrastructure – Phase I (NSF/DoD, $750,000, 8/1/2022-7/31/2023)

PI, Inference and Control in Overlay Networks (NSF, $600,000, 10/1/2021-9/30/2025)

PI, Adversarial Network Reconnaissance in Software Defined Networking (NSF, $575,000, 3/15/2020-2/28/2024)

Co-PI, Coupled cAscade Modeling, Prevention, and Recovery (CAMPR): When Graph Theory Meets Trajectory Sensitivity (NSF, $999,000, 9/1/2018-8/31/2023)

PI, Data Reduction for Communication-efficient Machine Learning (ARL – DAIS ITA, $352,209, 1/18/2018-9/14/2021)

PI, Adversarial Network Tomography: Inferring Network State from Manipulated End-to-end Measurements (NSF, $170,000, 10/1/2018-9/30/2021)

Task lead, Network Tomography in Multi-domain Networks (ARL – NIS ITA, $1,500,000, 2013-2016)

Primary researcher, Joint Routing and Resource Allocation in Mobile Edge Computing (ARL – NIS ITA, $1,200,000, 2013-2016)

Task lead, Measurement Science in Cloud Computing (NIST, $1,500,000, 2010-2013)

Task lead, Controlled Mobility in Delay-Tolerant Networks (ARL – NIS ITA, $600,000, 2009-2011)

Senior Personnel, ” NSF/DoD Convergence Accelerator (Phase 1) on 5G Security: NSF Convergence Accelerator Track G: Combating Vulnerability and Unawareness in 5G Network Security: Signaling and Full-Stack Approach”,NSF,$60,000,2022-2024

PI, “NSF CNS Large: Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Large: Systems and Verifiable Metrics for Sustainable Data Centers”,NSF,$666,385 (Penn State: $206,598.00),2022-2026

PI, “NSF CAREER: Principled Approaches to Securing Next Generation Cellular Networks”,NSF,$557,183,2022-2027

PI, “DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA): Automated Reasoning and Repairing Framework for Systematic Assurance of 5G RAN System”,DARPA,$500,000,2022-2024

Co-PI, “Penn State CSRE: Adoption of “Smart” Agricultural Irrigation Systems: Assessing and Mitigating Cybersecurity Threats to U.SFood, Water, And Energy Reserve. “,CSRE (Penn State),$30,000 (My Share: $10,000), 2022-2024

DARPA HR0011-2420366 (Defense Advanced Research Projects Oﬃce): VeriPro: Veriﬁed Probabilistic Cognitive Reasoning for Tactical Mixed Reality Systems. The DARPA ICS program. The lead PI. With Bin Li and Jonathan Dodge (CoPI), the George Washington University, Northeastern U., Design Interactive, USC, and the Kennesaw State U. (Subcontractors). $8,552,388. 2024–2027.
NSF CNS-2243632: Precise and Robust Binary Reverse Engineering and its Applications. Principal Investigator. Total: $600,000. Penn State’s portion: $600,000. 2023-2026.
NSF CNS-2230061: Detecting and Localizing Non-Functional Vulnerabilities in Machine Learning Libraries. Principal Investigator. Collaborative Research with Saeid Tizpaz-Niari (UT El Paso). Total: $600,000. Penn State’s portion: $246,643. 2023-2026.
NSF CNS-1956032: Automatic Software Patching against Microarchitectual Attacks. Co-Principal Investigator. With Danfeng Zhang (PI), Mahumut Kandemir, and Dinghao Wu. $500,000. 2020–2023.
DARPA HR0011-19-C-0073 (Defense Advanced Research Projects Oﬃce): SPARTA—the Secure Parser Toolkit for Assurance. Principal Investigator. Subcontractor to Galois Inc.. My group’s portion: $1,020,327. 2019–2023.
DARPA HR0011-19-C-0106 (Defense Advanced Research Projects Oﬃce): Secure Handling of Isolated Executables without Leaking Data (SHIELD). Principal Investigator. With Trent Jaeger (Co-PI). Subcontractor to Perspecta Labs. Penn state portion: $650,000. 2019–2024.
NSF CNS-1900873: Automated IoT Safety and Security Analysis and Synthesis. Co-Principal Investigator. With Patrick McDaniel (PI). $1,199,869. My group’s portion: $600,000. 2019–2023.
NSF CNS-1801534: Threat-Aware Defense: Evaluating Threats for Continuous Improvement. Co-Principal Investigator. Collaborative research with Trent Jaeger and Matthias Payer. $1,200,000. My group’s portion: $400,000. 2018–2022.
NSF CCF-1723571: Lightweight Abstract Memory Features. Principal Investigator. Collaborative research with Mike Spear and Xiaochen Guo at Lehigh, and Aviral Shrivastava at Arizona State. Jointly supported by NSF and Intel. $2,000,000. My group’s portion: $500,000. 2017–2020.
ONR (Oﬃce of Naval Research) N00014-17-1-2539: Semantics-Directed Binary Reverse Engineering and Transformation Validation. Principal Investigator. $500,000. 2017–2020.
NSF CNS-1408826: Retroﬁtting Software for Defense-in-Depth. Principal Investigator. Collaborative research with Trent Jaeger at Penn State, Vinod Ganapathy at Rutgers, and Christian Skalka at U. of Vermont. $1,200,000. My group’s portion: $300,000. 2014–2018.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Oﬃce) N6600117C4052: Automatic Generation of Anti-Speciﬁcations from Exploits for Scalable Program Hardening. Principal Investigator. Subcontractor to Virginia Tech. My group’s portion:$190,000. 2017–2018.
AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory) FA8750-14-C-0179: SLICE: Secure Lightweight Cloud Computing Environment. Principal Investigator. Subcontractor to Intelligent Automation Inc.. $30,000. 2014–2015.
NSF CCF-1217710: Reusable Tools for Formal Modeling of Machine Code. Principal Investigator. Collaborative research with Greg Morrisett at Harvard. $477,495. My group’s portion: $258,785. 2012–2015. REU supplement: $16,000.
NSF CAREER CCF-1149211: User-Space Protection Domains for Compositional Information Security. Principal Investigator, NSF, $483,125, 2012–2017.
Google Research Award: A Fully Certiﬁed Native Client Veriﬁer. Principal Investigator. $50,100. 2012–2013.
Google Research Award: Native Client with Trustworthy Veriﬁer and Stronger Security. Principal Investigator. $60,000. 2010–2011.
NSF CCF-0915157: Securing Multilingual Software Systems. Principal Investigator. Collaborative research with Greg Morrisett at Harvard. CCF-0915157. $480,131. My group’s portion: $265,048. 2009–2012. REU supplement: $16,000.
NSF IIS-0854606: Structuring, Reasoning, and Querying in a Very Large Medical Image Database. Principal Investigator. Collaborative Research with Xiaolei Huang and Dan Lopresti at Lehigh, and George Nagy at RPI. $392,000. My group’s portion: $54,464. 2008–2011.

PI, National Science Foundation (NSF), Communications, Circuits, and Sensing-Systems (CCSS) core program, ‘‘Collaborative Research: Optimized Testing Strategies for Fighting Pandemics: Fundamental Limits and Efficient Algorithms’’.
PI, National Science Foundation (NSF), Computer and Network Systems (CNS) core program, ‘‘Collaborative Research: CNS Core: Timely Computing and Learning over Communication Networks’’.
PI, National Science Foundation (NSF), Computer and Network Systems (CNS) core program, ‘‘CNS Core: Medium: When Next Generation Wireless Networks Meet Machine Learning’’.
PI, National Science Foundation (NSF), Spectrum and Wireless Innovation enabled by Future Technologies (SWIFT) program, ‘‘Learning-Efficient Spectrum Access for No-Sensing Devices in Shared Spectrum’’.
PI, National Science Foundation (NSF) and Intel, Machine Learning for Wireless Networking Systems (MLWiNS) program, ‘‘Dino-RL: A Domain Knowledge Enriched Reinforcement Learning Framework for Wireless Network Optimization’’.
Co-PI, Department of Energy (DOE), ‘‘Machine Learning Approaches to Predicting Induced Seismicity and Imaging Geothermal Reservoir Properties’’, Phase I and Phase II.

Co-PI, SHF: Small: Towards Obfuscation-Resilient Software Plagiarism Detection, CCF-1320605, Project Dates: 8/1/2013 – 7/31/2016, $500,000. Co-PIs: D. Wu and P. Liu.