Farah Ferdaus

I am an Assistant Professor in the Phillip M. Drayer Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Lamar University. Prior to joining Lamar, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) Division at Argonne National Laboratory (US Department of Energy, Office of Science). My research at Argonne focused on evaluating the energy efficiency of AI accelerators used in AI for science applications and HPC for AI. I worked on several projects that benchmarked the power and performance of deep learning models across different AI hardware platforms, which includes GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, as well as specialized AI accelerators like Intel Habana Gaudi, Graphcore, Groq, and others.

I have published numerous scientific articles, including journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters on esteemed platforms. My research is showcased in premier ACM/IEEE journals and conferences, such as the SC Workshops of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, IEEE International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud, and Internet Computing (CCGrid), IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems, IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), and IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems (TVLSI). My research interests include quantum computing, high-performance computer architecture, energy-efficient computing, hardware security, cybersecurity, and memory systems. My PhD research specifically focused on hardware security and emerging memory technologies.

Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Florida International University, December 2022

• M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  University of New Hampshire, December 2018

• B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
  Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), September 2015

News

• [Nov 2025] Will be serving on the technical program committee for SC26, CCGrid26, and ISQED26.
• [Oct 2025] Will mentor two Ph.D. students at SC25.
• [Jun 2025] Will be joining the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Lamar University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor starting Fall’25.
• [Feb 2025] Our paper Evaluating Energy Efficiency of AI Accelerators Using Two MLPerf Benchmarks just got accepted at CCGrid2025!
• [Nov 2024] Mentored a third-year Ph.D. student from Ohio State University at SC24.
• [Nov 2024] Served at Argonne Booth at SC24 Job Fair.
• [Nov 2024] Served at the Department of Energy (DOE) Booth Roundtable and Whisper Suite at SC24 Exhibits.
• [Sep 2024] Our paper LLM-Inference-Bench: Inference Benchmarking of Large Language Models on AI Accelerators just got accepted at PMBS24, colocated with SC24!
• [May 2024] Selected to participate in the Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing ATPESC 2024!
• [May 2024] Received a job offer from North Carolina A&T State University for a tenure-track assistant professor position.
• [Feb 2024] Received a job offer from the University of Texas at Tyler for a tenure-track assistant professor position.
• [Jan 2024] Our paper Hiding Information for Secure and Covert data Storage in Commercial ReRAM Chips just got accepted at IEEE TIFS!
• [May 2023] Our paper A Noninvasive Technique to Detect Authentic/Counterfeit SRAM Chips just got accepted at ACM JETC!
• [Mar 2023] Received a job offer from Montclair State University for a tenure-track assistant professor position.
• [Jan 2023] Will be joining the Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) Division at Argonne National Laboratory as a Postdoctoral Researcher, working remotely from Austin, TX under the guidance of MCS Division Director Valerie Taylor.
• [Nov 2022] Successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis with my 14-month-old… so yes, I’m officially a doctor (just not the kind that prescribes medicine)!
• [Oct 2022] Received a job offer from Texas A&M University - Central Texas for the position of Assistant Research Scientist in Cybersecurity.
• [Jun 2022] Presented our paper, Watermarked ReRAM: A Technique to Prevent Counterfeit Memory Chips, at GLSVLSI 2022 with my 9-month-old. What a journey!
• [May 2022] Our team has been invited to participate in Phase 2 of the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) 2022 Microelectronics Security Challenge (IP Security Track) and received NSF Travel Grant.
• [May 2022] Awarded NSF Student Travel Grant to participate in the Ph.D. Thesis competition at the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) 2022.
• [Apr 2022] Our paper Approximate MRAM: High-performance and Power-efficient Computing with MRAM Chips for Error-tolerant Applications just got accepted at IEEE TC!
• [Jul 2021] Awarded Diversity Grant to attend USENIX Security and the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) 2021.
• [Jun 2021] Successfully defended my Qualifying and Dissertation Proposal on “Emerging Memory Chips: Security and Applications,” marking a major milestone in my Ph.D. journey—all while 26 weeks pregnant. Officially a Ph.D. Candidate now!
• [Mar 2021] Awarded Student Participation Grant to attend the techTalk session and present my poster at ACM CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women 2021.
• [Feb 2021] Our paper Memory-Based PUFs are Vulnerable as Well: A Non-Invasive Attack Against SRAM PUFs just got accepted at IEEE TIFS!
• [Jan 2021] Transferred to Florida International University with Ph.D. advisor to continue Ph.D.
• [Dec 2020] Our paper True Random Number Generation using Latency Variations of Commercial MRAM Chips just got accepted at ISQED 2021!
• [Nov 2020] Our book chapter on Security of Emerging Memory Chips has been published online!
• [Aug 2020] Our paper True Random Number Generation Using Latency Variations of FRAM just got accepted at IEEE TVLSI!
• [May 2019] Awarded NSF Student Travel Grant to present my poster at the Women in Hardware and Systems Security (WISE) workshop, held in conjunction with the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) 2019.
• [Jan 2019] Rejected Ph.D. offers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of New Hampshire to pursue Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, shifting research focus to the Hardware Security domain at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
• [Nov 2018] Successfully defended my MS thesis.
• [Sep 2018] Offered admission to the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a Research Assistantship under the supervision of Dr. Krishnaswamy.
• [May 2017] Received an offer to pursue MSc at Texas State University with a Graduate Instructional Assistantship.
• [Apr 2017] Received an offer to pursue MSc in Wireless System Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire with a Research Assistantship.
• [Feb 2017] First co-authored paper Use of single bin Fourier transform algorithm for high speed tone detection and parallel processing from undergraduate research is now available online!
• [Jan 2016] Started professional career as an Electrical Safety Engineer at Stichting Bangladesh Accord Foundation, with a focus on safety compliance in the industrial (RMG) sector.
• [Sep 2015] Successfully defended my BSc thesis titled “Use of Spectral Overlapping in Special Applications”.
• [Dec 2013] Received Honorable Mention in the “Humanitarian Technology Project Idea Competition” at the IEEE Region-10 Women in Engineering (WIE) BD Congress 2013 (A Call of Engineering for Humanity).
• [Dec 2013] Runner-up in the WIE Logo Design Competition at the 1st IEEE Region-10 WIE BD Congress 2013 (A Call of Engineering for Humanity).
• [Jun 2012] Awarded Best Female Player at the BUET Chess Championship.