Stay informed about the latest news, events, and achievements from Spen Lab.
New Research Grant Awarded: Dr. Ahmed Sherif (PI) and Dr. Stephen Adams (Co-PI) have been awarded the "Elevating Computer Engineering Equipment for Enhanced Learning and Research (ELEVATE)" 2025 Educational Grant Program ($50,000) from the Mississippi Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers & Surveyors.
Publication News: Our paper "A Distributed Deep Learning Approach for Blood Sample-Based Early Detection of Dementia" by Khan Mamun, M., Sherif, A., Elsersy M., Khalil K., Imam A., and Abouzaid K. has been submitted to Image and Vision Computing Journal, Elsevier and is currently under review.
Conference Paper Accepted: The paper "Secure and Efficient Physically Unclonable Function Architecture with Feedback Loops" by Kasem Khalil, Md Rahat Kader Khan, Dr. Ahmed Sherif, Ashok Kumar, and Magdy Bayoumi has been submitted to IEEE 2025 18th Dallas Circuits and Systems Conference (DCAS'25) and is currently under review.
New Editorial Role: Dr. Ahmed Sherif has been appointed as Editor for multiple Special Issues in 2024, including "Privacy and Security in Sensor Networks" and "Cybersecurity in Smart Power Grids" for MDPI journals.
Conference Leadership: Dr. Ahmed Sherif has been appointed Publication Chair for the 4th IEEE International Conference on Computing and Machine Intelligence (ICMI 2025) and Exhibition Chair for IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for IoT and Microelectronics (SaTC 2025).
Student Success: Muhammad Zain Chaudhary has successfully completed his undergraduate honors thesis on "Secure and Privacy-Preservation Authentication Scheme for UAVs" and has joined our lab as a PhD student.
Conference Paper: Our paper "A Novel Classification of Authentication Schemes for Internet of Drones" by Eduardo Hernandez Escobar, Zain Chaudhary, Dr. Ahmed Sherif, Mohamed Elsersy, and Kasem Khalil has been accepted for the 5th International Symposium on Intelligent Computing Systems (ISICS 2024).
Hardware Acceleration Research: Our paper "Hardware Acceleration-Based Scheme for UNET Implementation Using FPGA" by K. Khalil, R. Abdelfattah, K. Abdelfatah and Dr. Ahmed Sherif has been published in the 2024 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Computing and Machine Intelligence (ICMI).
New Research Direction: Spen Lab is expanding its research focus on federated learning for healthcare applications, with new projects on early detection of dementia and Alzheimer's disease using hardware acceleration techniques.
Publication Milestone: Our paper "Efficient Hardware Design of Convolutional Neural Networks for Accelerated Deep Learning" by K. Khalil, M. R. Khan, M. Bayoumi and Dr. Ahmed Sherif was presented at the 2024 IEEE 67th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS).
Professional Recognition: Dr. Ahmed Sherif has been appointed as a reviewer for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for 2024.
Conference Presentation: Dr. Ahmed Sherif presented research findings on "Security and Privacy Schemes for Emerging Networks" at USM's Research Day 2024.
Journal Publication: Our paper "A Federated Learning Model Based on Hardware Acceleration for the Early Detection of Alzheimer's Disease" by Khalil, K., Khan Mamun, M., Sherif, A., Elsersy, M., Imam, A., Mahmoud, M., and Alsabaan, M. has been published in Sensors Journal (MDPI).
Conference Paper: Our paper "Privacy-Aware and Hardware Acceleration-Based Aggregation Scheme for Smart Grid Networks" by Kayla White, Ujunwa Madububa Mbachu, Dr. Ahmed Sherif, and Kasem Khalil was presented at the 2023 IEEE Eighth International Conference On Mobile And Secure Services (MobiSecServ) in Miami, Florida.
Conference Presentation: Our paper "Secure and Privacy-Preserving Aggregation Scheme For Traffic Management Systems" by Ujunwa Madububa Mbachu, Kayla White, Kenechukwu Sibeudu, Dr. Ahmed Sherif, and Mohamed Elsersy was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Internet of Things (AIBThings).
Research Presentation: Dr. Ahmed Sherif represented the School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering at the 2023 Mississippi Cybersecurity Faculty Retreat at Mississippi State University.