Farinaz Koushanfar is an

Iranian-American Iranian-Americans, also known as Persian-Americans, are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry, or who hold Iranian citizenship. Most Iranian-Americans arrived in the United States after 1979, as a result of the Irani ...

computer scientist whose research concerns

embedded system An embedded system is a specialized computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is e ...

s, ad-hoc networks, and

computer security Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and computer network, n ...

. She is a professor and Henry Booker Faculty Scholar of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

Education and career

Koushanfar obtained her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from

Sharif University of Technology Sharif University of Technology (SUT); (, romanized : Dāneshgāh-e sana'ti-e sharif) is a public research university in Tehran, Iran. It is widely considered to be the nation's most prestigious and leading institution for science, technology ...

(BSEE 1998), a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

in 2000, and a second master's degree in statistics and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 2005, with the dissertation ''Ensuring data integrity in sensor-based networked systems'' jointly supervised by

Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli Alberto Luigi Sangiovanni-Vincentelli (born June 23, 1947) is an Italian-American computer scientist. Since 1976 he has been a professor affiliated with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of Califor ...

and Miodrag Potkonjak. After postdoctoral research at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, she joined the faculty of

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

in 2006. She moved to her present position in San Diego in 2015.

Recognition

In 2008, Koushanfar was listed in the ''

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

'' "35 Innovators Under 35" for her work using random variation in

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

s as a

device fingerprint A device fingerprint or machine fingerprint is information collected about the software and hardware of a remote computing device for the purpose of identification. The information is usually assimilated into a brief identifier using a fingerprint ...

allowing manufacturers to validate the authenticity of devices. Her 2008 paper "Lightweight Secure PUFs" was given the Ten Year Retrospective Most Influential Paper Award in 2017 at the International Conference on Computer Aided Design. She was named a

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States federal government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. T ...

in 2010 and an

IEEE Fellow , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

in 2019, "for contributions to hardware and embedded systems security and to privacy-preserving computing". She was named to the 2022 class of

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

s, "for contributions to secure computing and privacy-preserving machine learning". In 2024, Koushanfar was elected to become a National Academy of Inventors (NAI) fellow, "the highest professional distinction awarded solely to academic inventors".

Selected publications

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Resources

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koushanfar, Farinaz Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Iranian computer scientists American computer scientists American women computer scientists Sharif University of Technology alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni American electrical engineers American women engineers Rice University faculty University of California, San Diego faculty Tehran Farzanegan School alumni Iranian emigrants to the United States Fellows of the IEEE 21st-century American women scientists 2022 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery 20th-century Iranian women scientists 21st-century Iranian scientists 21st-century Iranian women scientists Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers