Research Opportunity at HAVEN Research Group
Openings
Join our lab, “Hardware Assurance and Verification Engineering (HAVEN) research lab, to explore cutting-edge research in VLSI design, hardware security, FPGA customization, EDA design-for-security, and applied machine learning for security.
We welcome motivated and creative students (UG, MS, PhD) eager to develop secure, efficient, and intelligent systems.
If interested in, please send me your CV (+transcripts) via email to kamali@ucf.edu.
For more details, visit the HAVEN Research Group webpage.
Latest News and Updates
Aug 2025
- Our paper, “SAGE-HLS: Syntax-Aware AST-Guided LLM for High-Level Synthesis Code Generation”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the 43rd IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD 2025).
- I will be serving as Florida Cluster Initiative (FCI) faculty fellow, focusing on graduate student and postdoc engagement at FCI.
July 2025
- Our paper, “CircuitGuard: Mitigating LLM Memorization in RTL Code Generation Against IP Leakage”, has been invited for oral presentation at the 43rd IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD 2025).
- I will be serving as the Hardware Demo and Poster Chair at HOST 2026.
- I will be serving as TPC member at HOST 2026.
June 2025
- Our paper, “DecoRTL: A Run-time Decoding Framework for RTL Code Generation with LLMs”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD 2025).
- I will be giving a talk (Webinar) on GenAI for hardware security at AICAD4Sec Workshop (co-located with DAC 2025) son June 22, 2025.
- I will be serving as TPC member at SeHAS Workshop 2025.
- I will be serving as Registration Chair at IEEE PAINE 2025.
May 2025
- Our paper, “RTL++: Graph-enhanced LLM for RTL Code Generation”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the IEEE International Conference on LLM-Aided Design (ICLAD 2025).
- The 2nd edition of the workshop, “Security, Resilience, and Robustness of Systems and Software”, has been accepted to be held (co-located with) the d IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM 2025).
- Our paper, “TimelyHLS: LLM-Based Timing-Aware and Architecture-Specific FPGA HLS Optimization”, has been invited for oral presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Omni-layer Intelligent Systems (COINS 2025).
April 2025
- I will be giving a talk (Webinar) on GenAI for hardware security at Micro-Electronics Security Training (MEST) Center on September 24, 2025.
- I will be serving as TPC member at ICCD 2025.
March 2025
- Our paper, “StepGrade: Grading Programming Assignments with Context-Aware LLMs” has been received the Best Paper Award at IEEE ISEC 2025
- I will be serving as TPC member at FIE 2025.
Feb 2025
- Our paper, “StepGrade: Grading Programming Assignments with Context-Aware LLMs”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (IEEE ISEC 2025).
- The 3rd edition of the workshop, “AI/CAD for Hardware Security”, has been accepted to be held (co-located with) the Design Automation Conference 2025 (DAC 62).
Jan 2025
- One of Dr. Kamali’s collaborative works, “NoXLock: SiP Activation and Licensing through Obfuscated on-Chip Network and Fuzzy Traffic” has been nominated for the Best Paper Award at ASP-DAC 2025.
- Our paper, “LLM-GIFT: Large Language Models with Graphs Embedding for Hardware Information Flow Tracking”, has been invited for oral presentation at the 43rd IEEE VLSI Test Symposium 2025 (VTS 2025).
Nov 2024
- I will be serving as chair of a session at IEEE Int’l Conference on Physical Assurance and Inspection of Electronics (PAINE).
- I will be serving as Florida Cluster Initiative (FCI) faculty fellow, focusing on graduate student and postdoc engagement at FCI.
Sep 2024
Our paper, “SimEval: Investigating the Similarity Obstacle in LLM-based Hardware Code Generation”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the 30th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC 2025).
Aug 2024
- I will be serving as the Hardware Demo and Poster Chair at HOST 2025.
- I will be serving as TPC member at HOST 2025.
- I will be giving a talk (Webinar) on GenAI for security at Temple University – College of Engineering.
July 2024
- I will be serving as TPC member at DATE 2025.
June 2024
Our book, “Hardware Security: A Look into the Future” has been published by the SpringLink Publication. You can find the online version here:
June 2024
- I will be serving as chair of a session at ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI 2024).
- I will be serving as chair of a session at IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI 2024).
May 2024
- Our paper, “Self-HWDebug: Automation of LLM Self-Instructing for Hardware Security Verification”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI 2024).
- I will be serving as TPC member at ICCD 2024.
Apr 2024
- Our paper, “Evolutionary Large Language Models for Hardware Security: A Comparative Survey”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI 2024).
- Our paper, “From Full-Custom to Gate-Array ASIC for Hardware IP Protection”, has been invited to appear in the 17th IEEE Dallas Circuits and Systems Conference (DCAS 2024).
March 2024
- Our paper, “Advancing Trustworthiness in System-in-Package: A Novel Root-of-Trust Hardware Security Module for Heterogeneous Integration”, has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Access.
- I will be serving as TPC member at GLSVLSI 2024.
- I will be serving as TPC member at ISVLSI 2024.
Feb 2024
Our paper, “GATE-SiP: Enabling Authenticated Encryption Testing in Systems-in-Package”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the 61st ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC 2024).
Jan 2024
- Our paper, “Improving Bounded Model Checkers Scalability for Circuit De-obfuscation: An Exploration”, has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security (IEEE TIFS).
- Our paper, “Exploring the Abyss? Unveiling Systems-on-Chip Hardware Vulnerabilities beneath Software”, has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security (IEEE TIFS).
2023
Dec 2023
Our paper, “PQC-HI: PQC-enabled Chiplet Authentication and Key Exchange in Heterogeneous Integration”, has been accepted for publication in the 74th IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (IEEE ECTC 2024).
Nov 2023
I will be giving a talk on hardware security automation at University of Central Florida, College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) Virtual Series.
Sep 2023
Our paper, “SiPGuard: Run-time System-in-Package Security Monitoring via Power Noise Variation”, has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (IEEE TCAD).
Sep 2023
Our book, “Understanding Logic Locking” has been published by the SpringLink Publication. You can find the online version here:
Aug 2023
Our paper, “PALLET: Protecting Analog Devices using a Last-Level Edit Technique”, has been accepted for oral presentation at the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Physical Assurance and Inspection of Electronics (IEEE PAINE 2023).