DHS Summer Research Team receives funding to continue IOT research

Every summer, the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI) welcomes like-minded research teams to campus to collaborate through the DHS Summer Research Team Program for Minority Serving Institutions. The 2020 Summer Research Team has received follow-on funding from DHS S&T for one year to continue their IOT research.

The Internet of things (IoT) is the network of devices embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet.

“With billions of new devices connected each year, IoT is considered the biggest growth area of the Internet,” says Shengli Yuan, a professor of Computer Science at the University of Houston -- Downtown and the leader of the 2020 Summer Research team. “Our research focuses on finding security vulnerabilities in IoT technologies and proposing solutions to make them more secure and reliable.”

According to Yuan, IoT network connects everything including household appliances, medical monitors, industrial controllers, and more. It is therefore very important to make it safe and reliable. 

Working with Yuan on this project are CIRI Director David Nicol, the CIRI administrative team, and a student from the University of Houston – Downtown, Tooba Hashmi. The follow-on funding is administered through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), which supports “the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate’s mission to enable effective, efficient, and secure operations across all homeland security missions by applying scientific, engineering, analytic, and innovative approaches to deliver timely solutions and support departmental acquisitions.”

“I am extremely delighted and honored to receive this funding and to continue our collaboration with Dr. Nicol and the UIUC team,” says Yuan.