Xiaolin Xu
Associate Professor,
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Contact
- x.xu@northeastern.edu
- 409 Dana
360 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115
Office
- 424 Dana
Research Focus
Security, Machine Learning, AI Security/Privacy, Energy-efficient Deep Learning, Computer Architecture, FPGA, Embedded Systems, VLSI
Education
- PhD, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2016
Research Overview
Security, Machine Learning, AI Security/Privacy, Energy-efficient Deep Learning, Computer Architecture, FPGA, Embedded Systems, VLSI
Selected Research Projects
- Securing Brain-inspired Hyperdimensional Computing against Design-time and Run-time Attacks for Edge Devices
- – Principle Investigator, National Science Foundation
- CAREFREE:Cloud infrAstructure ResiliencE of the Future foR tEstbeds, accelerators and nEtworks
- – Principle Investigator, National Science Foundation
- CAREER Award: Securing Reconfigurable Hardware Accelerator for Machine Learning: Threats and Defenses
- – Principle Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Accelerating Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning as a Service: From Algorithm to Hardware
- – Principle Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Secure and Robust Machine Learning in Multi-Tenant Cloud FPGA
- – Principle Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Bolstering UAV Cybersecurity Education through Curriculum Development with Hands-on Laboratory Framework
- – Principle Investigator, National Science Foundation
Department Research Areas
Selected Publications
See faculty website (https://www.xiaolinxu.com/publication.html) for updated publication list.
Aug 25, 2025
Advancing Ultra-Efficient AI for Wearables and IoT
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu, in collaboration with the University of California-Riverside, was awarded a $560K NSF grant for “Designing and Optimizing Tiny Vector Symbolic Architectures for Ultra-Efficient Inference on Tiny Devices.”
Jul 01, 2025
Xu Honored with DAC Under-40 Innovators Award
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu was named a recipient of the 2025 IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC) Under-40 Innovators Award.
Jan 31, 2025
2024 Stanford University Annual Assessment of Author Citations
The following COE professors are among the top scientists worldwide selected by Stanford University representing the top 2% of the most-cited scientists with single-year impact in various disciplines. The selection is based on the top 100,000 by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above. The list below includes those who published a paper in 2024 or later.
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.
Jul 25, 2023
Enhancing Security for Brain-Inspired Computing
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu, in collaboration with Shaolei Ren from the University of California-Riverside, was awarded a $600,000 NSF grant for “Securing Brain-Inspired Hyperdimensional Computing Against Design-time and Run-time Attacks for Edge Devices.”
Jul 21, 2023
$1.2M NSF Award for Securing Scientific Cyberinfrastructures From Advanced Attacks
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu is leading a $1.2 million NSF grant, in collaboration with ECE Professor Miriam Leeser and Mike Zink from the University of Massachusetts, for “CAREFREE:Cloud infrAstructure ResiliencE of the Future foR tEstbeds, accelerators and nEtworks.”
Jul 14, 2023
NSF CAREER Award To Enhance the Security of Machine Learning Hardware Accelerators
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu was awarded a $600,000 NSF CAREER Award for “Securing Reconfigurable Hardware Accelerator for Machine Learning: Threats and Defenses.”
Jul 06, 2023
$1.2M NSF Award for Making AI More Secure With Privacy-Preserving ML
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu, in collaboration with Wujie Wen from Lehigh University and Caiwen Ding from the University of Connecticut, was awarded a $1.2 million NSF grant for “Accelerating Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning as a Service: From Algorithm to Hardware.”
Oct 31, 2022
IEEE/ACM William J. McCalla ICCAD Best Paper Nomination
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu and student Tong Zhou, PhD’25, and coauthor Shaolei Ren from UC Riverside received the IEEE/ACM William J. McCalla ICCAD Best Paper Nomination at the 2022 International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (IEEE/ACM ICCAD, San Diego, CA), for their paper titled “ObfuNAS: A Neural Architecture Search-based DNN Obfuscation Approach.”
Jul 18, 2022
Creating Defenses Against Multi-Tenant ML Cloud-FPGA Vulnerabilities
ECE Assistant Professor Xiaolin Xu, in collaboration with Arizona State University, was awarded a $500K NSF grant to design a “Secure and Robust Machine Learning in Multi-Tenant Cloud FPGA.”