News – solid lab

[03/2024] Congratulations to three solid lab Ph.D. students, Ervin Moore, Badhan Chandra Das, and Md Jueal Mia for successfully passing their Ph.D. Qualifying Exams on Quantum-Encrypted Federated Learning (FL), Privacy-preserving FL for Medical Images, and Secure and Privacy-Preserving FL for Intelligent Transportation Systems, respectively!
[02/2024] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Candidate Luiz Manella Pereira for successfully defending his Ph.D. proposal on “Optimal Transport for Machine Learning: from Federated Learning to Complex Network Resilience”!
[01/2024] Congratulations to solid lab Director Dr. M. Hadi Amini, solid lab Ph.D. Candidate Khandaker Mamun Ahmed, as well as their collaborator for serving as co-inventors of the recent U.S. Patent atent “Anomalous activity recognition in videos”!
[12/2023] solid lab’s research on the privacy of AI algorithms and modern cars has been featured by The Conversation! (Link)
[11/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. Candidate Yasaman Saadati and solid lab Director Dr. M. Hadi Amini, as well as their collaborators for the acceptance and publication of their paper, entitled “Forecasting and Optimization for Minimizing Combined Sewer Overflows using Machine Learning Frameworks and Its Inversion Techniques” in the Journal of Hydrology! (Link)
[10/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. Student, Badhan Chandra Das, solid lab Director Dr M. Hadi Amini, as well as Dr. Yanzhao Wu, for acceptance of their paper entitled “Privacy Risks Analysis and Mitigation in Federated Learning for Medical Images” at the International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM) with competetive Acceptance Rate of 19.7%! Badhan also received the IEEE BIBM 2023 Student Travel Award! (Link)
[09/2023] Congratulations to solid lab’s Director Dr. M. Hadi Amini for receiving the “2023 FIU Faculty Convocation Excellence in Teaching Award”! (Link)
[09/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. Student Ervin Moore, solid lab’s Ph.D. alumnus Dr. Ahmed Imteaj, and solid lab Director Dr. M. Hadi Amini, as well as their collaborator Dr. Rezapour from FIU ELE for the acceptance and publication of their paper, entitled “A Survey on Secure and Private Federated Learning Using Blockchain: Theory and Application in Resource-constrained Computing” in IEEE Internet of Things Journal! ( Link 1)
[08/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Director Dr. M. Hadi Amini for his new role as the Director and Principal Investigator of the “ADvanced education and research for Machine learning-driven critical Infrastructure REsilience (ADMIRE) Center” sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security! (admire.fiu.edu)
[07/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. Candidate Khandaker Mamun Ahmed, solid lab Ph.D. Student Luiz Manella Pereira, and solid lab Director Dr. M. Hadi Amini, as well as their collaborators for the acceptance and publication of their paper, entitled “Towards Real-time House Detection in Aerial Imagery Using Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Network” in IPSI Transactions on Internet Research!
[06/2023] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Candidate Namrata Saha for successfully defending her Ph.D. proposal on “Interdependent Reinforcement Learning Algorithms for Concurrent Restoration of Coupled Critical Infrastructures”!
[05/2023] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD students Yasaman Saadati and Luiz Manella Pereira for successfully passing their PhD qualifying exams!
[04/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Director, Prof. Amini, for leading the FIU efforts and serving as the Associate Director of the National Center for Transportation Cybersecurity and Resiliency (TraCR). This award, led by Clemson University and made under the USDOT’s University Transportation Center (UTC) program, is expected to total $4 million per year for five years! (Link to US DOT, Link to KFSCIS Coverage)
[03/2023] solid lab Director, Prof. Amini, was invited to a panel as a part of World Happiness Fest 2023 to share his insights on Artificial Intelligence and Federated Learning for Future Smart Cities (Panel Information: How can the latest inventions and technologies evolve “Smart Cities” into “Cities of Happiness”?)(Link to KFSCIS Coverage1) ( Link to KFSCIS Coverage2)
[02/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. alumnus, Dr. Ahmed Imteaj (graduated Summer 2022) and solid lab Director, Prof. Amini for the acceptance and presentation of their work entitled “FedMDP: A Federated Learning Framework to Handle System and Model Heterogeneity in Resource-Constrained Environments” at the AI to Accelerate Science and Engineering Workshop, Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI’23)!
[01/2023] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. alumnus, Dr. Ahmed Imteaj (graduated Summer 2022) and solid lab Director, Prof. Amini for the publication of their work entitled “A Novel Scalable Reconfiguration Model for the Postdisaster Network Connectivity of Resilient Power Distribution Systems” in collaboration with their collaborator from the Business School at University of Nottingham in Sensors journal!
[12/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Khandaker Mamun Ahmed for receiving the “2022 Best Graduate Student in Research Award” from the School of Computing and Information Sciences” at FIU!
[11/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD student Namrata Saha for successfully passing her PhD qualifying exam on Reinforcement Learning for Interdependent Networks Restoration!
[10/2022]Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. alumnus, Dr. Ahmed Imteaj (graduated Summer 2022), Khandaker Mamun Ahmed (fourth year Ph.D. student), and solid lab Director, Prof. Amini for publication of their work entitled “Federated Learning for Resource-Constrained IoT Devices: Panoramas and State of the Art” in collaboration with researchers from Deep Learning Research at Samba Nova Systems, IBM TJ Watson, and Binghamton University in Federated and Transfer Learning Book!
[09/2022]Congratulations to Ph.D. students, Dr. Leila Zahedi (graduated Summer 2022) and Yasaman Saadati (second year Ph.D. student) for, respectively, receiving the first and third poster competition awards based on their research at solid lab in the graduate category during CMD-IT/ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference! “The Tapia conference is the premier venue to acknowledge, promote and celebrate diversity in computing.”
[08/2022] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. Fellow, Luiz Manella Pereira, Prof. Amini, and their collaborator from FIU Mathematics and Statistics Department, for receiving the Best Journal Paper Award for their work entitled “Topological Data Analysis for Network Resilience Quantification” in Springer Nature Operations Research Forum! (Link )
[07/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Ahmed Imteaj advised by Prof. M. Hadi Amini for being recognized as the “2022 Real Triumphs Graduate” in the FIU Summer 2022 Commencement Ceremony! (Link, FIU CEC Coverage)
[06/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Leila Zahedi advised by Prof. M. Hadi Amini for successfully defending her Ph.D. Dissertation entitled “An Evolutionary Optimization Algorithm for Automated Classical Machine Learning” on June 29, 2022!
[05/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Ahmed Imteaj advised by Prof. M. Hadi Amini for successfully defending his Ph.D. Dissertation entitled “Distributed Machine Learning Algorithms for Resource-Constrained Heterogeneous IoT Environments” on May 20, 2022!
[05/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, for his recent “Rewarding Excellence in Teaching Incentives (RETI)” award! The RETI award recognizes faculty who are working to create learning-centered, inclusive classroom experiences.
[04/2022] Congratulations to solid lab Ph.D. Candidates for receiving the Student Life Award from the Division of Academic and Student Affairs at FIU! Ph.D. Candidate Ahmed Imteaj received the Graduate Scholar of the Year Award and Ph.D. Candidate Leila Zahedi received the Graduate Leader of the Year Award!
[04/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Khandaker Mamun Ahmed, and director, Prof. Amini for acceptance of their work in collaboration with researchers at Florida International University entitled “A Federated Learning Framework for Automated Decision Making with Microscopic Traffic Simulation” for presentation and publication at the 31st International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN 2022)!
[03/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Leila Zahedi, and director, Prof. Amini for publication of their work in collaboration with the University of Georgia entitled “A2BCF: An Automated ABC-Based Feature Selection Algorithm for Classification Models in an Education Application” in Applied Sciences Journal!
[02/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Ahmed Imteaj, and director, Prof. Amini for publication of their work entitled “Leveraging Asynchronous Federated Learning to Predict Customers Financial Distress” in Journal of Intelligent Systems with Applications!
[01/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate Leila Zahedi, and director, Prof. Amini for publication of their work in collaboration with the University of Georgia entitled “OptABC: an Optimal Hyperparameter Tuning Approach for Machine Learning Algorithms” in proceeding 2021 20th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA)!
[01/2022] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. students Khandaker Mamun Ahmed and Ahmed Imteaj, and director, Prof. Amini for publication of their work entitled “Federated Deep Learning for Heterogeneous Edge Computing” in proceeding 2021 20th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA)!
[12/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidates Leila Zahedi and Ahmed Imteaj for receiving their M.Sc. degrees en route towards Ph.D.!
[12/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s Ph.D. students Khandaker Mamun Ahmed and Ahmed Imteaj, and director, Prof. Amini for acceptance of their work entitled “Federated Deep Learning for Heterogeneous Mobile Robots” for presentation at the Southeast Decision Sciences Institute 2022 event in Jacksonville, Florida!
[11/2021] Congratulation to solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate, Ahmed Imteaj, solid lab’s former NSF REU Researcher, Raghad Alabagi, and solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, for acceptance of their recent work entitled “Exploiting Federated Learning Technique to Recognize Human Activities in Resource-Constrained Environment” at 13th International Conference on Intelligent Human-Computer Interaction (IHCI-2021)! (Acceptance rate: 20%)
[10/2021] solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, and solid lab’s Ph.D. Candidate, Ahmed Imteaj have been invited to the FIU Book Authors Recognition 2021! solid lab members have co-authored two books during 2020-2021 on distributed computing algorithms and blockchain!
[09/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s Director for acceptance of collaborative paper (based on the grant from NSF RAPID program) entitled “Data-driven inferences of agency-level risk and response communication on COVID-19 through social media-based interactions” in the Journal of Emergency Management!
[08/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Candidate, Ahmed Imteaj, solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, and the collaborators from Texas A&M University at Galveston and Lehigh University for acceptance of the journal paper entitled ” FedResilience: A Federated Learning Application to Improve Resilience of Resource-Constrained Critical Infrastructures” at Special Issue on “Security of Cyber-Physical Systems” at Electronics Journal!
[08/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Candidate, Leila Zahedi, solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, and the collaborators from the University of Georgia, FIU’s Enterprise and Logistics Engineering, and Purdue University for acceptance of the conference paper entitled ” Search Algorithms for Automated Hyper-Parameter Tuning” at 17th International Conference on Data Science!
[08/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Candidate, Leila Zahedi, for her recent achievement to serve as a speaker at Grace Hopper Celebration 2021!
[07/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Candidate, Ahmed Imteaj, solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, and the collaborators from Deep Learning Research at Samba Nova Systems, IBM TJ Watson, and Binghamton University for acceptance of the journal paper entitled “A Survey on Federated Learning for Resource-Constrained IoT Devices” at IEEE Internet of Things Journal! (Download Link) (IEEE Link)
[07/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s Director for acceptance of collaborative paper led by Penn State, entitled “Protection of large-scale smart grids against false data injection cyberattacks leading to blackouts” in the International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection!
[07/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Candidate, Leila Zahedi for her recent award, “Richard Tapia Celebration Scholarship”! She will present solid lab’s research at the CMD-IT/ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference!
[06/2021] Congratulations to former solid lab’s undergraduate researcher, Calvin Mark, for admission to the Computer Science Master’s program in Georgia Techstarting Fall of 2021!
[06/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD Fellow, Luiz Manella Pereira and Prof. Amini, and collaborator from FIU Mathematics and Statistics Department, for acceptance of their paper entitled “Topological Data Analysis for Network Resilience Quantification” in Springer Nature Operations Research Forum!
[05/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD student Ahmed Imteaj for successfully defending his Ph.D. proposal on “Distributed Machine Learning Algorithms for Resource-constrained Heterogeneous IoT Environments”!
[05/2021] solid lab’s collaborative paper, led by the FIU Department of Civil Engineering entitled “Data-driven Inferences of Agency-level Risk and Response Communication on COVID-19 through Social Media based Interactions” is accepted for publication at the “Journal of Emergency Management”!
[04/2021] solid lab’s members’ journal paper entitled “FedPARL: Client Activity and Resource-Oriented Lightweight Federated Learning Model for Resource-Constrained Heterogeneous IoT Environment” is accepted for publication at Frontiers in Communications and Networks! (Link)
[04/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD student, Ahmed Imteaj, for receiving the second place award at the FIU Graduate Student Appreciation Week on his work on “Lightweight Federated Learning Framework for Resource-Constrained IoT Environment”.
[04/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD student Khandaker Mamun Ahmed for successfully passing his PhD qualifying exam on Deep Convolutional Neural Network for COVID-19 Detection!
[03/2021] Congratulations to solid lab’s PhD student Leila Zahedi for successfully defending her PhD proposal on “Efficient Optimization Algorithms for Automated Machine Learning: Theory and Applications”!
[01/2021] solid lab’s Undergraduate Researcher, Calvin Mark, who is mentored by Prof. Amini, is featured by FIU News, FIU CEC News, and FIU SCIS News (Link 1) (Link 2) (Link 3)
[12/2020] Congratulations to solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini for receiving the School of Computing and Information Sciences’ Excellence in Teaching Award!
[11/2020] solid lab’s members’ paper entitled “FedAR: Activity and Resource-Aware Federated Learning Model for Distributed Mobile Robots” is accepted for publication and presentation at 19th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA 2020)! Congrats to the co-authors, Prof. Amini, and solid lab’s Ph.D. student Ahmed Imteaj! The Acceptance Rate of IEEE ICMLA 2020 is 25%!
[11/2020] Congratulations to Calvin Mark, solid lab’s Undergraduate Researcher for his new job at Oracle/Oracle Cloud as a Software Engineer.
[11/2020] Paper entitled “Malware detection using artificial bee colony algorithm” is accepted at the Adjunct Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers! Congrats to Prof. Amini and collaborators!
[11/2020] Congratulation to solid lab’s PhD student, Ahmed Imteaj, for presenting his exciting research entitled “Distributed machine learning for collaborative mobile robots” at the BuildSys/SenSys 2020 Joint PhD Forum! (Link)
[09/2020] solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, is appointed as Guest Editor of Special Issue on ”Federated Learning meets 6G” in Frontiers in Communications and Networks, Data Science for Communications!
[09/2020] Congratulations to solid lab’s members and collaborators from Carnegie Mellon University for their recently accepted paper entitled “Distributed Machine Learning for Resilient Operation of Electric Systems” at the 2020 International Conference on Smart Energy Systems and Technologies (SEST)!
[08/2020] solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, was supported by a Prestigious Summer Faculty Fellowship! The Summer fellowship’s extension grant has been approved to develop novel distributed decision-making algorithms for large-scale optimization problems!
[08/2020] solid lab’s collaborative work with Texas A & M at Galveston researchers has been accepted for publication and presentation at the 2020 IEEE Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers organized by IEEE Signal Processing Society! Congrats to Ph.D. Student Ahmed Imteaj and Prof. Amini!
[08/2020] Two IEEE Transactions Papers co-Authored by solid lab members have been accepted!
[07/2020] solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini is serving as co-Chair of the Special Session on “Advanced Machine Learning and Applications: Federated Learning and Meta-Learning (AML-IoT FLAME 2020)” as a part of 19TH IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA2020)! (Link)
[05/2020] Call for Book Chapter Abstract submission in the book co-edited by Prof. Amini and Prof. Shafie-khah entitled Cyberphysical Smart Cities Infrastructures: Optimal Operation and Intelligent Decision Making! (Link)
[04/2020] solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini is interviewed by FIU News! (Link, SCIS Twitter)
[04/2020] solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini (Co-PI) together with Dr. Sadri (PI), received an NSF grant entitled COVID-19: Understanding Community Response in the Emergence and Spread of Novel Coronavirus through Health Risk Communications in Socio-Technical Systems!
[03/2020] solid lab’s journal paper on the Data Science Challenges of Interdependent Networks is published in Patterns!
[03/2020] solid lab released a predictive interactive map and dashboard for COVID-19 Datasets (Link)!
[02/2020] solid lab’s Two Undergraduate Research Fellows and one Graduate Student-initiated research on data science for COVID-19 prediction! The team will soon release a public dashboard that visualizes predictive analytics on COVID-19 statistics!
[02/2020] solid lab is hosting Prof. Panos Pardalos from the University of Florida for the SCIS Distinguished Lecture Series entitled “On the Limits of Computation in Non-convex Optimization”! (Announcement, Coverage)
[02/2020] solid lab is hosting Sakshi Mishra from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for an invited lecture at “Optimization for Computing: Theory and Applications” course offered by Prof. Amini, as well as FIU SCIS invited lecture series! (Announcement, Coverage)
[01/2020] solid lab is hosting Prof. Majid Fathi from the University of Siegen, Germany, for a distinguished Artificial Intelligence Seminar at FIU SCIS! (Announcement, Coverage)
[01/2020] Prof. Amini is recognized as Best Reviewer of IEEE Transactions for Smart Grid and Exceptional Reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy!
[12/2019] solid lab’s paper entitled “Distributed Sensing Using Smart End-user Devices: Pathway to Federated Learning for Autonomous IoT ” has received the Best Paper Award at the 2019 IEEE Conference on Computational Science & Computational Intelligence! Media Coverage: SCIS News, SCIS LinkedIn, and SCIS Twitter!
[12/2019] solid lab’s director, Prof. Amini, serves as session chair for two sessions at the Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI 2019): 1) Artificial Intelligence (CSCI-ISAI); 2) Big Data and Data Science (CSCI-ISBD) + Social Network Analysis, Social Media, & Mining (CSCI-ISNA)!
[12/2019] solid lab’s collaborative journal paper joint with Carnegie Mellon University, entitled “Distributed Holistic Framework for Smart City Infrastructures: Tale of Interdependent Electrified Transportation Network and Power Grid”, is accepted for publication at “Distributed Computing Infrastructure for Cyber-Physical Systems” Session of IEEE Access!
[11/2019] solid lab’s director’s article on a physics-based model of electrified vehicles in interdependent transportation and energy networks is published at Optimization in Large Scale Problems!
[11/2019] solid lab’s collaborative research with Carnegie Mellon University on a novel distributed intelligence algorithm for critical infrastructures is accepted and published in the Proceedings of the 9th ACM Symposium on Design and Analysis of Intelligent Vehicular Networks and Applications and presented by Prof. M. Hadi Amini at the 22nd ACM International Conference on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems! Media Coverage: SCIS Twitter, LinkedIn, and Carnegie Mellon University Energy Science and Innovation Club!
[10/2019] solid lab’s research on Distributed Sensing for Federated Learning in Autonomous IoT by Ahmed Imteaj and Prof. M. Hadi Amini is just accepted at the 2019 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence! (Acceptance Rate: 17%)
[10/2019] solid lab’s collaborative research with Department of Computer Science, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Georgia entitled “On Parameter Tuning in Meta-learning for Computer Vision” is accepted for presentation and publication in proceedings of the 2019 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence! (Acceptance Rate: 17%)
[10/2019] Our collaborative paper on optimal sensor placement for cyberphysical energy network observability, joint with Carnegie Mellon University and Lehigh University has been accepted for publication in flagship journal of smart energy systems, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid! (Impact Factor: 10.486)
[10/2019] Our collaborative paper on optimal attack strategy in cyberphysical energy systems, joint with Departments of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Architectural Engineering at Penn State University has been accepted for publication and presentation at International Workshop on Big Data Analytics of Cyber-Physical Systems as a part of the Tenth IEEE International Green and Sustainable Computing Conference (IGSC 2019)! (Acceptance rate: 40%)
[10/2019] Prof. Amini is serving as the Technical Program Committee of 12th International Conference on COMmunication Systems & NETworkS (COMSNETS) 2020 Graduate Forum!
[09/2019] solid lab’s Sunanda Guha has been awarded the prestigious travel grant to attend DFHS Workshop at the 6th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation (BuildSys 2019)! Congratulations Sunanda! Media coverage: SCIS, LinkedIn, FIU Grad School, and Twitter! (Acceptance rate: 21.48%)
[09/2019] Prof. Amini is serving as the Technical Program Committee of 1st ACM Workshop on Device-Free Human Sensing, ACM Buildsys 2019!
[08/2019] Multiple PhD positions are available in the areas of optimization/learning theory, data analytics, distributed algorithms, and cyberphysical security/resilience. Application domains include interdependent networks, smart city infrastructures, and sensor networks. To apply, please email us your resume[including education, list of references, software experience, publication list, English test scores if applicable] and maximum two recently-published representative papers (solid@cs.fiu.edu). We are always looking forward to working with motivated undergraduate and masters students who are interested in solid lab’s research. Partial funding for Visiting Scholars/Students is available.
[08/2019] Prof. Amini is serving as the Technical Program Committee of 3rd International Conference on Smart Energy Systems and Technologies (SEST’2020)!
[08/2019] Prof. Amini joined the School of Computing and Information Sciences, College of Engineering and Computing, Florida International University as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor!
[08/2019] Prof. Amini was awarded NSF Travel support to attend National Science Foundation “Networking Technology and Systems Early-Career Investigators” (NeTS-ECI) Workshop, Alexandria, VA, August 5-6, 2019!
[06/2019] Prof. Amini was awarded NSF Travel support to attend National Science Foundation-sponsored Workshop on “Smart Grid Edge Analytics” at the Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, June 4-5, 2019!

Resources

solid lab, Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences