Tampa, FL.—April 18, 2018—The Florida Center for Cybersecurity (FC2) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2017–2018 Collaborative Seed Award Program, which funds cybersecurity applied research projects led by scholars from at least two State University System of Florida (SUS) institutions. This is the program’s largest funding round to date, with $720,734 provided to ten research projects involving 20 faculty members from eight SUS institutions. Since its inception in 2014, the Collaborative Seed Award Program has provided a total of $2.35 million in funding to 44 cybersecurity applied research projects.
“The Collaborative Seed Award Program promotes cross-institutional collaboration, bringing together talented researchers from different universities to work together to tackle the complex challenges facing the cybersecurity industry,” remarked Sri Sridharan, director of the Florida Center for Cybersecurity.
Ten projects have been awarded a total of $720,734. This year’s recipients are
- Cyber-Physical Attacks Recovery in Smart Grids: Security, Resiliency, and Interdependency
Wei Sun, Ph.D., University of Central Florida and Mahshid Naeini, Ph.D., University of South Florida - Quantum-Resistant Zero-Knowledge Proofs Applied to Anonymity-Preserving Data Collection and Anonymous Cryptocurrencies
Jean-François Biasse, Ph.D., University of South Florida, and Reza Azarderakhsh, Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University - Thwarting Advanced Persistent Threats in Internet of Things
Aziz Mohaisen, Ph.D., University of Central Florida, and My T. Thai, Ph.D., University of Florida
- Software Defined Network (SDN)-Based Attack-Resilient Smart Grid Sensor Network: PMU Placement, Self-Healing Algorithm Design and Network Topology Design
Lingling Fan, Ph.D., P.E., University of South Florida, and Elias Bou-Harb, Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University - A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Detecting Persistent Threats
Xiuwen Liu, Ph.D., Florida State University, and Xinming Ou, Ph.D., University of South Florida
- Data Integrity and Energy Optimizations of Blockchains
Swapnoneel Roy, Ph.D., University of North Florida, and Mainak Chatterjee, Ph.D., University of Central Florida - Defending against Adversarial Attacks on Deep Learning Systems
Sumit Kumar Jha, Ph.D., University of Central Florida, and Prabhat Mishra, Ph.D., University of Florida - Preventing, Detecting, and Responding to attacks on Safety-Critical Cyber-Physical Systems
Arman Sargolzaei, Ph.D., Florida Polytechnic University, and Kang K. Yen, Ph.D., Florida International University
- Security-Aware Virtual Machine Management on Cloud Platform Using the Game-Theoretic Approach
Gang Quan, Ph.D., Florida International University, and Liqiang Wang, Ph.D., University of Central Florida
- Anonymity in Secure Tagged IoT Systems
Shigang Chen, Ph.D., University of Florida, and Kwang-Cheng Chen, Ph.D., University of South Florida
About the Florida Center for Cybersecurity
The Florida Center for Cybersecurity is a statewide resource established to position Florida as a national leader in cybersecurity through education and workforce development; innovative, interdisciplinary research; and community engagement. Hosted at the University of South Florida, FC2 works with all twelve State University System of Florida (SUS) institutions to create connections, build partnerships, capitalize on opportunities, and encourage collaboration among stakeholders in industry, academia, government, and defense. The Center hosts events to engage a diverse audience base throughout the year and administers funding programs that support collaborative research and cybersecurity programming at SUS institutions.
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