Yunsi Fei
Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs,
Office of the Dean
Professor,
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Northeastern Site Lead,
NU CHEST
Office
- 415 ISEC
- 617.373.2039
Research Focus
Hardware-oriented security, computer architecture, embedded systems, design automation, IoT and cyber physical systems
About
Yunsi Fei received her BS and MS degrees in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University, China in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and her PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2004. She was a faculty member at University of Connecticut until Sept. 2011 when she joined the faculty of Northeastern University. She is presently a professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Northeastern, and also serves as the NU site director of an NSF IUCRC Center for Hardware and Embedded System Security and Trust (CHEST). Her research and educational activities have been spanning hardware security and trust, secure computer architecture and systems, energy-efficient embedded system design and optimization, adaptive networking for underwater sensor networks, etc. She was a recipient of NSF CAREER award.
Education
- PhD, Princeton University, 2004. Joined Northeastern in 2011.
Honors & Awards
- Distinguished paper award, ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communication Security (AsiaCCS), 2023.
- Best paper award, ACM Great Lake Symposium on VLSI, 2022.
- Best paper award, IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 2017.
- Invited attendee, The Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium 2016, National Academy of Engineering
- 2015 COE Faculty Fellow
- Best paper award, International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS), 2015.
- National Science Foundation CAREER Award
Research Overview
Hardware-oriented security, computer architecture, embedded systems, design automation, IoT and cyber physical systems
Selected Research Projects
- RINGS: Internet of Things Resilience through Spectrum-Agile Circuits, Learning-Based Communications and Thermal Hardware Security
- – co-Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Phase I IUCRC Northeastern University: Center for Hardware and Embedded System Security and Trust (CHEST)
- Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Protecting Confidentiality and Integrity of Deep Neural Networks against Side-Channel and Fault Attacks
- Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Automating Countermeasures and Security Evaluation Against Software Side-Channel Attacks
- Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Persistent cache monitor to combat ransomware
- Principal Investigator, CHEST Industry Fund
- Is ARM Trustzone trustable?
- Principal Investigator, CHEST Industry Fund
- Secure RISC-V Processor Design, Implementation, and Simulation
- Principal Investigator, CHEST Industry Fund
- Analog Trojan Detection Circuits and Validation Methods
- Co-Principal Investigator, CHEST Industry Fund
Research Centers and Institutes
Northeastern Lead
Center for Hardware and Embedded Systems Security and Trust (CHEST)
Affiliated Faculty
Institute of Information Assurance (IIA)
Department Research Areas
Selected Publications
- Z. Zhang, A.A. Ding, Y. Fei, A Fast and Accurate Guessing Entropy Estimation Algorithm for Full-Key Recovery, IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems (TCHES), 2, 2020
- M. Sabbagh, Y. Fei, D. Kaeli, A Novel GPU Overdrive Fault Attack, ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conf. (DAC), July 2020
- C. Gongye, Y. Fei, T. Wahl, Reverse Engineering Deep Neural Networks Using Floating-Point Side Channel, ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conf. (DAC), July 2020
- C. Luo, Y. Fei, A. Ding, P. Clause, Comprehensive Side-Channel Power analysis of XTS- AES, IEEE Transactions on CAD (TCAD), 38, (12), 2019, 2191-2220
- Z.H. Jiang, Y. Fei, D. Kaeli, Exploiting Bank Conflict based Side-Channel Timing Leakage of GPUs, ACM Transaction on Architecture and Code Optimization (TACO), 16(4), 2019
Jun 10, 2025
PhD Spotlight: Ruyi Ding, Ph’25, Computer Engineering
Ruyi Ding, PhD’25, computer engineering, focuses his research on the intersection of artificial intelligence security and hardware security, following a software–hardware co design paradigm. In fall 2025, Ding will join the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Louisiana State University as an assistant professor.
Jan 06, 2025
Patent for Enhanced Memory Security Against Side-Channel Attacks
ECE Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs Yunsi Fei was awarded a patent for “Methods and systems for protecting against memory-based side-channel attacks.”
Nov 13, 2023
$1.5M ARL Grant To Improve Cybersecurity and Robustness in Additive Manufacturing
MIE Professor Sinan Müftü and Assistant Professor Ozan Özdemir were awarded a $1.5 million research grant by the Army Research Laboratories (ARL) to spearhead innovative initiatives in cybersecurity and enhancement of mechanical robustness in parts and coatings produced through Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing.
Aug 03, 2023
Fei’s Group Receives ACM Distinguished Papers Award
Computer engineering graduate students Ruyi Ding, PhD’24, Cheng Gongye, PhD’23, Siyue Wang, PhD’22, Mathematics Professor A. Adam Ding, and ECE Professor Yunsi Fei were awarded a Distinguished Papers Award at the 18th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security for their paper on “EMShepherd: Detecting Adversarial Samples via Side-channel Leakage.”
Jul 06, 2022
Protecting Breaches from Side Channel Attacks
ECE Professor Yunsi Fei and Mathematics Associate Professor Aidong Ding were awarded a $300k NSF EAGER grant for “Side Channels Go Deep – Leveraging Deep Learning for Side-channel Analysis and Protection.”
Apr 20, 2022
$1 Million NSF Award as Part of Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems Program for Spectrum-Agile IoT Networks
ECE Associate Professor Marvin Onabajo, Professor Yunsi Fei, Assistant Professor Aatmesh Shrivastava, and Assistant Professor Francesco Restuccia were awarded a $1M NSF grant for “RINGS: Internet of Things Resilience through Spectrum-Agile Circuits, Learning-Based Communications and Thermal Hardware Security.”
Mar 12, 2020
Cybersecurity: Your Secrets Are Safe With Us
Northeastern researchers are at the forefront of cybersecurity research, protecting everything from the phone in your pocket to the city of the future.
Sep 12, 2019
Fei is Northeastern Lead for New Multi-University Research Center
ECE Professor Yunsi Fei has been awarded $750K five-year grant from the NSF as the Northeastern lead for a new multi-university research center, CHEST, or Center for Hardware and Embedded Systems Security and Trust.
Jul 11, 2019
$1.2M NSF Grant to Secure Deep Neural Networks
ECE Professor Yunsi Fei, Assistant Professor Xue (Shelley) Lin, and Khoury Associate Professor Thomas Wahl were awarded a $1.2M NSF grant for “Protecting Confidentiality and Integrity of Deep Neural Networks against Side-Channel and Fault Attacks”.
Nov 09, 2017
PhD Student Wins Best Paper at Computer Design Conference
ECE PhD student Mohammad Khavari-Tavana won the best paper award at the 35th IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD).