Faculty Directory

Qu, Gang

Qu, Gang

Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The Institute for Systems Research
Maryland Applied Graduate Engineering
Maryland Energy Innovation Institute
1417 A.V. Williams Building

Gang Qu received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UCLA in 1998 and 2000, respectively. Previously, he had studied Mathematics in the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and the University of Oklahoma. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland in 2000. He holds a joint appointment with the Institute for Systems Research. He is currently the director of Maryland Embedded System and Hardware Security (MeshSec) lab and wireless sensors laboratory.

Dr. Qu works on power/energy efficiency and security problems in the design of integrated circuits (IC), embedded systems, cyber physical systems, and the Internet of Things. He has more than 300 publications in these areas and served 18 times as the general or program chair/co-chair of international conferences, symposiums, and workshops. He is a co-founder of IEEE Asian Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (2016), the founding chair for the hardware security track in ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (2016), a co-founder of the Hot Picks in Hardware and System Security Workshop (2018), a co-founder of IEEE CEDA Hardware Security and Trust Technical Committee (2019). He has served as the associated editor for many scientific journals, including IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), Transactions Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC), Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), Transactions on Circuits and Systems II (TCAS-II), Embedded Systems Letters (ESL); ACM ACM Transactions on Design Automation for Electronic Systems (TODAES); Integration, the VLSI Journal; Journal of Computer Science and Technology (JCST); Journal of Hardware and System Security (HaSS); and Fundamental Research (FR).

Honors and awards

•IEEE Fellow, 2021

•Best Paper Awards: 33rd IEEE International System-on-Chip Conference (SOCC 2020); 4th IEEE Asian Hardware Oriented Security and Trust Symposium (AsianHOST 2019); 17th IEEE International Conference on Application-specific Systems, Architectures and Processors (ASAP 2006);  ACM SIGMOBILE International Conference on

Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom 2001)  

• ACM Recognition of Service Awards, ACM SIG Governing Board (2019, 2006,  2005)  

• Outstanding Systems Engineering Faculty Awards, ISR, University of Maryland (2020)

• George Corcoran Award, ECE Department, University of Maryland (2002)   

Dr. Qu's research interests fall in the broad field of VLSI design automation with focus on low power and security issues in the design of integrated circuits (IC), embedded systems, cyber physical systems, and the Internet of Things. For real life problems, we build mathematical models, develop optimal and heuristic algorithms, implement practical solutions, and perform system prototyping. He has served on the ACM SIGDA Low Power Technical Committee and is the co-founder of IEEE CEDA Hardware Security and Trust Technical Committee. 

The scope of his work on hardware and system security and trust goes from new materials, transistor, and logic gates to architecture, system, network, and application levels. Some examples include resistive RAM based authentication, polymorphic logic as a new hardware security primitive, ring oscillator physical unclonable functions (RO PUF), gate camouflage and logic obfuscation, secure scan chain design, VLSI intellectual property (IP) and IC protection, information hiding, fault injection and side channel attacks, fault tolerant and approximate computing for security and authentication, GPS spoofs attack detection and survival, insider attack detection in wireless network, security in smart grids and vehicles, privacy preservation in vehicular network, and more recently various security and trust issues in machine learning algorithms and their implementations.

He has made significant contributions in the power and energy efficient design of VLSI systems, embedded systems, wireless sensor networks, and the Internet of Things. He is among the first to investigate how to change system's operating voltage and clock frequency based on system's real time computation demands to reduce power and energy, which nowadays is known as dynamic voltage and frequency scaling. He proposed a series of studies on trading performance for energy saving (such as design with quality of service guarantee and probabilistic design), the key concept of approximate computing. More recently, he is looking into various security vulnerabilities introduced by aggressive power and energy reduction.


He has taught the following courses: ENEE 114, ENEE 244, ENEE 644, ENEE 759B, and ENEE 759Q. He won the George Corcoran Teaching Award in 2002.

Keynote address by Gang Qu focuses on scan-based DfT

Qu spoke at the IEEE Asian Test Symposium in Bejing.

New graduate program in Embedded Systems

The 30-credit Master of Engineering and 12-credit Graduate Certificate in Engineering will begin in Fall 2023.

Better 'lifetime predictions' for NAND flash memory

New ADLPT techniques developed by Gang Qu and colleagues can mimimize redundant prediction operations.

ISR/ECE faculty organizing, moderating panel at CADforAssurance

Gang Qu is one of the event organizers; Ankur Srivastava is a moderator of Panel 5 on hardware assurance for AI.

Physical adversarial examples could deceive an autonomous vehicle's traffic sign recognition system

Work by Gang Qu and colleagues shows deception could place vehicle occupants in life-threatening situations.

New Research Showcased at TRB

Transportation safety, impact of telecommuting among topics covered by UMD experts.

Congratulations, May 2021 ISR graduates!

Institute for Systems Research faculty advised PhD, MS, BS and 12 MSSE students who graduated in May 2021.

UMD, UMBC, ARL Announce Cooperative Agreement to Accelerate AI, Autonomy in Complex Environments

The agreement leverages Maryland's national leadership in engineering, robotics, computer science, operations research, modeling and simulation, and cybersecurity.

Ganguly, Fiaz, Suryan are first MRC GRA recipients

The new program is open to mid-career UMD Ph.D. students with Maryland Robotics Center advisors.

Gang Qu and alumni contribute two chapters to authenticating embedded devices book

The book covers state-of-the-art integrated circuit authentication techniques, including technologies, protocols and emerging applications.

Srivastava, Qu part of Department of Defense 'SHIP' Project hardware security team

They will investigate a wide range of attack methodologies that could be used against protoype IC chiplets being developed in the project.

$4.96M for Maryland researchers in DARPA AISS semiconductor security project

ISR, ECE, Fraunhofer USA CESE and ARLIS researchers will assess strength of AISS security protections.

Gang Qu elected IEEE Fellow

Hardware security expert's citation reads, “for contributions to hardware intellectual property protection and security.”

Gang Qu and colleagues develop method to detect recycled integrated circuits masquerading as new chips

Recycling isn't always good in the electronics world where passing off old integrated circuits as 'new' is increasingly common.

Symptoms all in your head—or in your gut? Maybe a little of both.

UMD researchers are building an ingestible capsule that can monitor and model gut microbiome serotonin activity and help demystify the “gut-brain axis.”

Qu, Singh, Chakraborty, D'Antonio win 2020 ISR awards

The 2020 ISR Welcome Back Reception and Awards Ceremony was held online due to the pandemic situation.

Wu and Wong granted U.S. patent for method to detect counterfeiting

The optical features of paper can be used to authenticate documents with mobile cameras and illumination.

Wu, Milton receive NSF funding to improve telemedicine

Micro-signals on videos could be used to infer physiological conditions.

BBI Awards Seed Grants to Six Interdisciplinary Projects

Funded teams feature UMD faculty from 15 academic departments and six centers and institutes

Zampogiannis, Ganguly, Aloimonos and Fermüller author "Vision During Action," chapter in new Springer book

Modelling Human Motion presents a comprehensive overview of human motion essential for robotics applications.

PUF-based key holds promise for IC security

Gang Qu and colleagues have proposed a new secure scan design scheme to provide authentication and alleviate security concerns.

MRC Researchers to Present 16 Papers at ICRA 2020

International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020 will be held online from May 31st to August 31st. MRC researchers will be presenting 16 papers at this conference.  

Ingestible device research advances, enters new phase

New NSF funding, Lab on a Chip paper for Ghodssi group developing minimally invasive medical devices.

Behtash Babadi promoted to associate professor

Babadi has broad research interests in statistical and adaptive signal processing, neural signal processing, and systems neuroscience.

Securing IC encryption during manufacturing and testing

'Cryptographic hash' could thwart attackers seeking the cipher keys of sensitive integrated circuits.

A learning algorithm for training robots' deep neural networks to grasp novel objects

Dinesh Manocha and colleagues' algorithm significantly simplifies the data preparation for learning-based grasping systems and leads to higher qualities of learned grasps.

FPGA optimization: Impact of different benchmark circuits on a representative path

Gang Qu and colleagues find the representative path delay can represent the average of critical path delays under different reference circuits.

UMD Presents New Research at TRB Annual Meeting

Papers and poster sessions addressed topics ranging from crash data analysis to tracking the outcomes of major highway projects.

AlphaGo family of AI programs grew from AMS simulation-based algorithms developed at UMD

New review article by original author Michael Fu traces game-playing AI programs to seminal 2005 paper in Operations Research.

Brain and Behavior Initiative Hosts 3rd Annual Seed Grant Symposium

Researchers from across UMD convene to discuss the latest projects funded by BBI

NSF Awards $1M Grant to UMD Researchers

The interdisciplinary project will explore the molecular connection between the gut and the nervous system.

Ghodssi Receives Senior Faculty Outstanding Research Award

The award recognizes exceptionally influential research accomplishments by Clark School faculty.

BBI Announces FY19 Seed Grant Awards

Awarded proposals feature researchers from seven colleges and schools as well as three centers and institutes

Gang Qu gives tutorial presentation at DATE 19 Conference

Qu spoke on “Hardware-Based Lightweight Authentication for IoT Application.”

UMD researchers awarded $5.3M NIH BRAIN Initiative grant

BBI-affiliated faculty instrumental to "Readout and control of spatiotemporal neuronal codes for behavior"

Brain and Behavior Initiative (BBI) hosts Second Annual Seed Grant Symposium

The University’s Brain and Behavior Initiative (BBI) hosted its Second Annual Seed Grant Symposium on November 14, 2018 at Adele’s in the Stamp Student Union.

GapFlyt helps aerial robots navigate more like birds and insects

Bio-inspired sensorimotor framework allows quadrotors to fly though unknown gaps without building 3D maps.

Prof. Sang Bok Lee appointed director of Maryland NanoCenter

UMD chemist will direct two labs on nanoscale fabrication and characterization

Three ISR faculty receive UMD Brain and Behavior Initiative seed grants

Projects featuring Fritz, Babadi and Ghodssi are among seven chosen for FY18 funding.

Nau, Gelfand, Goldstein part of MURI developing the potential of mean-field game theory

The AFOSR initiative funds researchers from Maryland, UCLA, the University of Houston, and Princeton.

BBI Holds 2017 Seed Grant Symposium

Over 115 people attend symposium featuring work and accomplishments of BBI Seed Grant Awardees for FY16/FY17.

Gang Qu receives NSF EAGER grant for hardware security

The research will focus on the development of three enabling technologies to establish polymorphic gates as a hardware security primitive.

BBI FY17 Seed Grant Winners Announced

Nine projects selected for funding.

Qu Gives Keynote at WOCC 2017

Professor Gang Qu's keynote speech was on “How Hardware are Made Insecure and Untrusted.” 

UMD Researchers Find Ultra-thin Solution to Primary Obstacle in Solid-State Battery Development

Clark School researchers are developing game-changing solid-state battery technology

Researchers write about Google's AlphaGo for OR/MS Today

Chang, Fu, Hu and Marcus write about their contribution to AlphaGo and how the OR and CS/AI communities could better cooperate.

NanoDay2016 Features Inspiring Speakers, Poster Awards

200 scientists and students attend bi-annual nanoscience conference at UMD

A View Through Wood Shows Futuristic Applications

Transparent wood made at UMD could create new windows, cars and solar panels

Maryland research contributes to Google’s AlphaGo AI system

Chang, Fu, Hu and Marcus developed ideas at the core of the system that defeated Go master Lee Se-Dol in early March.

BBI Seed Grant winners announced

Five projects selected for inaugural round of funding.

Qu Wins NIST Grant

Qu and research team will study the use of Silicon Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) as an entropy source.

University of Maryland, College Park & Baltimore Campuses Announce Seed Grant Winners

Program, now in eight year, spurs inter-campus research collaboration

Qu, Sutton speak on cyberterrorism panel at INCOSE Symposium

Security must be designed into systems, not added after the fact, both agreed.

Gang Qu delivers keynote address on fault tolerance and the Internet of Things

Qu spoke at the 16th Chinese Fault-Tolerant Computing Conference (CFTC2015) in Shanghai, China.

Thin coatings controlled at atomic scale protect high performance lithium anodes

Anodes with layer of alumina resist corrosion and cycle well

Dachman-Soled Wins ORAU Award for Junior Faculty

ECE professor was one of two nominees from the University of Maryland.

Qu organizes ARO workshop on information technologies

The workshop concentrated on emerging cybersecurity technologies used in warfare.

UMD's Kanold and Losert, NIMH's Plenz receive $1.7M BRAIN Grant

Researchers will investigate how crowds of neurons process sensory information.

Clark School Faculty Promotions Announced

Faculty promoted to full professor, associate professor with tenure.

Ankur Srivastava promoted to full professor

Srivastava's research has advanced the frontiers of chip design technology.

Gang Qu promoted to full professor

Qu is part of new AFOSR MURI on security theory for nano-scale devices.

Srivastava, Dey, Mirsky, King win 2014 ISR Awards

Awards honor outstanding faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff.

Researchers at UMD, UCONN, and Rice Awarded MURI

Qu, Srivastava and Alumnus Forte Focus Research on Changing Future Nano-Scale Device Security

UMD to Offer New MOOCs Multi-Course Specialization in Cybersecurity

New initiative positions university at the forefront of the next chapter in massive open online courses.

A Battery Made of Wood?

Wood fibers help nano-scale batteries keep their structure

Qu Invited to Speak at 2013 IEEE CAS-FEST

Professor Gang Qu speaks on establishing trust in critical components for Internet of Things: circuitry and routing protocols.

Sagar Chowdhury wins ISR graduate student award

Chowdhury’s research focuses on optical tweezers.

Gang Qu organizes 'cybervehicle systems' workshop, Nov. 8-9

Free event will address challenges related to next-generation vehicle cyber systems.

Collaborative international projects funded in solar power, cell-based systems, and ultra-low power systems

Research is part of agreement between Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, and University of Maryland.

Qu Appointed to Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Computers

Monthly journal covers computer architectures, digital devices, operating systems, and new and important applications and trends.

FAA approves NEXTOR II aviation operations research contract

ISR's Michael Ball and David Lovell lead the University of Maryland NEXTOR II team.

Qu and Wu Awarded AFOSR Grant for Trusted Computing System Design

ECE faculty receive $450K grant from Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Six Clark School faculty become affiliates of ISR

ISR welcomes Desai, Humbert, Jacob, Paley, Qu and Smela.

Seven ECE Students Named Future Faculty Fellows

Ph.D. students chosen to participate in Clark School program designed to prepare future professors.

S.K. Gupta awarded NSF grant for autonomous optical manipulation of cells

Researchers will develop a system that features holographic optical tweezers.

ECE Faculty Honored at Inaugural Scholarship & Research Celebration

Twenty-seven ECE faculty members honored, representing 1/8 of researchers recognized university-wide.

Qu in the News for Technique to Save Power in Handheld Devices

Gang Qu featured in MIT Technology Review for research aimed at saving processing power.

MERIT and TREND Fair Showcases Summer Research

Undergraduate presenters honored for their 11-week research internship projects.

ECE Professor Introduces New "Desktop Supercomputing"

Uzi Vishkin's group develops first easy-to-program parallel processing supercomputer prototype.

Five ISR communication researchers featured in E@M magazine

Cover story features Professors Ulukus, Ephremides, Narayan, Liu and La

Marcus, Fu, Chang and Hu co-author Simulation-based Algorithms for Markov Decision Processes

Book explains recent sampling and population-based numerical algorithms that overcome the difficulties of computing an optimal solution in terms of a policy and/or value function.

Wu and Qu awarded AFOSR grant for high-performance trusted computing platforms

Research will focus on novel applications of data hiding in computer programs.

Vishkin, Qu, Balkan Share Best Paper Honors at ASAP Conference

ECE group wins best paper prize at conference on special-purpose computing systems.

ECE Faculty Promotions Announced

Two promoted to professor and four promoted to associate professor.

Qu Team Receives NCIIA Grant for Secure E-Payment System

Team earns grant from National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance.

Ephremides is PI for NSF MRI grant on wireless sensor networks

Project will develop experimental prototypes of intelligent embedded systems

Qu Receives Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Research Award

ECE Assistant Professor Gang Qu earns $50,000 award from Microsoft.

Barua is co-principal investigator for five-year, $700K NSF grant

Research will investigate parallel random-access model (PRAM)-on-chip.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

  • Fellow, 2021