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About Me

My name is Soheil Salehi, and I am a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the University of Arizona, as well as the Director of the Privacy-preserving, Intelligent, and Secure Computing Lab (PRISM Lab). Before joining the University of Arizona, I was an NSF-Sponsored Computing Innovation Fellow (CIFellow) and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Accelerated, Secure, and Energy-Efficient Computing (ASEEC) Laboratory and the Center for Hardware and Embedded Systems Security and Trust (CHEST) at the University of California, Davis (UCD) with a research focus on Privacy, Security, and Trust in Computer Systems. My postdoctoral fellowship was supported by the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) under the NSF-Sponsored Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020. I was an Associate Member of the UCD Institute for Hardware and AI-enabled Cyber Security (IHACS). My technical research interests include Hardware and AI-enabled Security in IoT, Generative AI for Hardware Design and Security, Energy-Efficient and Intelligent Signal Conversion and Processing in IoT, Neuromorphic and Biologically-inspired AI Hardware, Emerging Spin-Based Devices, Reconfigurable and Adaptive Computer Architectures, Low-Power and Reliability-Aware VLSI circuits. My educational interests span laboratory-based instruction, technology-enabled learning, feedback-driven formative assessment, digital twins and mixed reality for workforce training and development, and generative AI for personalized education. I completed my Computer Engineering Ph.D. in May 2020 at the University of Central Florida (UCF), where I received my M.S. degree in Computer Engineering in December 2016. I completed my doctoral research in the Computer Architecture Laboratory (CAL) under the supervision of Dr. Ronald F. DeMara at UCF. I was the recipient of the Outstanding Program Committee Member Award at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC) in 2023 and the Outstanding Organizing Committee Member Award at the IEEE Dallas Circuits and Systems Conference (DCAS) in 2024. Additionally, I was the recipient of an IEEE/ACM DAC dissertation forum grant in 2019, as well as the sole recipient of the UCF Excellence by a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the university-level in 2016. I was nominated for the 30-Under-30 Award at the University of Central Florida in 2020 and the Postdoctoral Research Excellence Award at the University of California, Davis in 2022.

News Headlines

• 2025-2026: Our paper titled “DDD-GenDT: Dynamic Data-driven Generative Digital Twin Framework” was accepted to the IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (TAI).
• 2025-2026: Soheil Salehi’s research on Secure AI Hardware Design was highlighted at the CIFellows Symposium.
• 2024-2025: Our paper titled “LLM4MCU-Onto: Leveraging LLMs for Automated Ontology Generation from Microcontroller Reference Manual” was accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD).
• 2024-2025: Our paper titled “HWREx: AI-enabled Hardware Weakness and Risk Exploration and Storytelling Framework with LLM-assisted Mitigation Suggestion” was accepted to the ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES).
• 2024-2025: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the Networks and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS’26).
• 2024-2025: Our paper titled “Reliability of Capacitive Read in Arrays of Ferroelectric Capacitors” was accepted to the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS’25).
• 2024-2025: $174,000 Grant from the University of Arizona Research, Provost Investment Fund (PIF) Award. Role: PI
• 2024-2025: Our paper titled “Photogrammetry for Digital Twinning Industry 4.0 (I4) Systems” was accepted to the ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA’25).
• 2024-2025: Our paper titled “Transformers: A Security Perspective” was accepted to the IEEE Access.
• 2024-2025: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Organizing Committee (OC) Member at the IEEE International Conference of Computer Design (ICCD’25).
• 2024-2025: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’25).
• 2024-2025: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS’25).
• 2024-2025: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the Workshop on Top Picks in Hardware and Embedded Security co-located with IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD’24).
• 2024-2025: Our paper titled “S-Tune: SOT-MTJ manufacturing parameters tuning for securing the next generation of computing” was accepted to the Frontiers in Electronics Journal.
• 2024-2025: Our paper titled “Interactive Framework for Cybersecurity Education and Future Workforce Development” was accepted to the IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE’24).
• 2024-2025: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the Networks and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS’25).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of a Session at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’24).
• 2023-2024: $1,500 NSF Travel Support to attend the CISE CAREER Workshop in Washington DC, April 29-30, 2024.
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “IRET: Incremental Resolution Enhancing Transformer” was accepted to the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’24).
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Educational Tool-spaces for Convolutional Neural Network FPGA Design Space Exploration Using High-Level Synthesis” was accepted to the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’24).
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Automated Hardware Logic Obfuscation Framework Using GPT” was accepted to the IEEE Dallas Circuits and Systems Conference (DCAS’24).
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Optimized and Automated Secure IC Design Flow: A Defense-in-Depth Approach” was accepted to the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers (TCAS-I) in the Special Issue on Learning, Optimization, and Implementation for Circuits and Systems driven by Artificial Intelligence.
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Securing On-Chip Learning: Navigating Vulnerabilities and Potential Safeguards in Spiking Neural Network Architectures” was accepted to the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS’24).
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Sensitivity Analysis of SOT-MTJs to Manufacturing Process Variation: A Hardware Security Perspective” was accepted to the IEEE International Symposium on Quality Electronics Design (ISQED’24).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Organizing Committee Member at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’24).
• 2023-2024: Invited Talk at Temple University, Virtual, December 6, 2023.
• 2023-2024: $119,830 Grant from the University of Arizona Research, Innovation & Impact (RII) Award. Role: Co-PI
• 2023-2024: $30,000 Grant from the University of Arizona Research, Innovation & Impact (RII) Award. Role: PI
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “FFXE: Dynamic Control Flow Graph Recovery for Embedded Firmware Binaries” was accepted to the USENIX Security Symposium 2024.
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the USENIX Security Symposium 2024.
• 2023-2024: Invited Talk at Everspin Technologies, In-person, October 24, 2023.
• 2023-2024: Invited Talk at Intel Product Assurance and Security (IPAS), Virtual, October 24, 2023.
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Quantized Transformer Language Model Implementations on Edge Devices” was accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA’23).
• 2023-2024: $300K Grant from NSF SaTC EAGER for the proposal “Generative AI-based Personalized Cybersecurity Tutor for Fourth Industrial Revolution“. Role: Co-PI
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Leveraging Firmware Reverse Engineering for Stealthy Sensor Attacks via Binary Modification” was accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD’23).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of Session at the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD’23).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Organizing Committee Member at the IEEE Dallas Circuits and Systems Conference (DCAS’24).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST’24).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi received the Outstanding Reviewer Award at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’23).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of Sessions at the IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS’23).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the IEEE International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED’24).
• 2023-2024: Our paper titled “Securing AI Hardware: Challenges in Detecting and Mitigating Hardware Trojans in ML Accelerators” was accepted to the IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS’23).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the Workshop on Attacks and Solutions in Hardware Security (ASHES’23) co-located with ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS’23).
• 2023-2024: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD’23).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of Sessions at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’23).
• 2022-2023: Our paper titled “Machine Learning for Intrusion Detection: Stream Classification Guided by Clustering for Sustainable Security in IoT” was accepted to the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’23).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of Sessions at the IEEE International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED’23).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the SSH-SoC: Safety and Security in Heterogeneous Open System-on-Chip Platforms Workshop co-located with the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’23).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’23).
• 2022-2023: Our paper titled “Low Energy and Area Efficient ANN-based Digit Recognition using Spin-based Progressive Modular Redundancy” was accepted to the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS’23).
• 2022-2023: Our paper titled “Automated Supervised Topic Modeling Framework for Hardware Weaknesses” was accepted to the IEEE International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED’23).
• 2022-2023: $48,357 Grant from the University of Arizona Research, Innovation & Impact (RII) Award. Role: Co-PI
• 2022-2023: Our paper titled “Hardware Trojan Detection using Machine Learning: A Tutorial” was accepted to the ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Organizing Committee Member at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’23).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’23).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the IEEE International Conference on VLSI Design (VLSID’23).
• 2022-2023: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the IEEE International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED’23).
• 2022-2023: ECE Department at the University of California Davis announces that Soheil Salehi will be joining the ECE Department at the University of Arizona in the Fall of 2022 as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor.
• 2021-2022: Soheil Salehi’s research on Hardware Security was highlighted at the 30th Anniversary of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Symposium.
• 2021-2022: Soheil Salehi’s research as a Computing Innovation Fellow (CIFellow) was highlighted by the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC).
• 2021-2022: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of a Session at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’22).
• 2021-2022: Our paper titled “Survey of Machine Learning for Electronic Design Automation,” was accepted to the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’22).
• 2021-2022: Our paper titled “Neuromorphic-Enabled Security for IoT,” was accepted to the IEEE International New Circuits and Systems Conference (NEWCAS’22).
• 2021-2022: The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and Computing Research Association (CRA) highlight Soheil Salehi’s work.
• 2021-2022: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of a Session at the IEEE International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED’22).
• 2021-2022: Our paper titled “LOCK & ROLL: Deep-Learning Power Side-Channel Attack Mitigation using Emerging Reconfigurable Devices and Logic Locking,” was accepted to the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’22).
• 2021-2022: Our paper titled “FANDEMIC: Firmware Attack Construction and Deployment on Power Management Integrated Circuit and Impacts on IoT Applications,” was accepted to the Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium (NDSS’22).
• 2021-2022: The ECE department of the University of California Davis recognizes Soheil Salehi’s NSF-sponsored Fellowship.
• 2021-2022: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’22).
• 2021-2022: $75K Grant from CHEST Industry Fund for “SHERLOCK: Power Side Channel Attack Resilient Hardware using Emerging Reconfigurable Devices and Logic locking.” Role: Co-PI
• 2020-2021: Paper titled “Embedded STT-MRAM Energy Analysis for Intermittent Applications Using Mean Standby Duration,” accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems (ICECS’21).
• 2020-2021: Our paper titled “Adaptive Non-Uniform Compressive Sensing using SOT-MRAM Multibit Crossbar Arrays,” was accepted to the IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology (TNANO).
• 2020-2021: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of a Session at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’21).
• 2020-2021: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’21).
• 2020-2021: Our paper titled “Evaluation of Machine Learning-based Detection against Side-Channel Attacks on Autonomous Vehicle,” was accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Circuits and Systems (AICAS’21).
• 2020-2021: Our paper titled “Securing Hardware via Dynamic Obfuscation Utilizing Reconfigurable Interconnect and Logic Blocks,” was accepted to the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC’21).
• 2020-2021: Our paper titled “Ontology-Driven Framework for Trend Analysis of Vulnerabilities and Impacts in IoT Hardware,” was accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing (ICSC’21).
• 2020-2021: Soheil Salehi receives the Best Presentation of the Symposium Award at the University of California Davis Postdoctoral Research Symposium 2021.
• 2020-2021: Soheil Salehi was invited to serve as Chair of a Poster Session at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI’20).
• 2020-2021: The University of California Davis Recognizing Soheil Salehi for receiving the NSF-Sponsored CIFellows $250K grant.
• 2020-2021: The University of Central Florida Recognizes Soheil Salehi for receiving the NSF-Sponsored CIFellows $250K grant.
• 2020-2021: $250K Grant from Computing Research Association (CRA) and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) under the NSF-Sponsored Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020. Role: PI