The newsletter highlights our ongoing activities and accomplishments, not only on the research front but also on education and outreach. We hope to keep you up-to-date on the broad research activities within the Institute, as well as provide opportunities for collaboration. We look forward to connecting with you.
Swarup Bhunia, Director & Semmoto Endowed Professor, ECE
My T. Thai, Associate Director & UF Research Foundation Professor, CISE
 UF IoT Conference makes big impact in a flourishing field In December 2025, the third Warren B. Nelms Annual IoT Conference gathered hundreds of scientists, faculty, students and industry leaders to UF’s Malachowsky Hall for Data Science and Information Technology to discuss advancements, applications and continued demand for IoT devices, from smart home gadgets to wearable technology to industrial machines. The conference theme was Intelligent Edge Computing: Emerging Frontiers in Technology and Applications. The two-day event also included interactive demos and poster presentations on student research. | |
 | Innovative Gait Analysis Method Earns Best Paper Runner-up at IEEE SmartIoT Conference Researchers from the University of Florida received the Best Paper Runner-up Award at the 9th IEEE International Conference on Smart Internet of Things (SmartIoT 2025) for their paper, “A Machine Learning Approach for Real-time Gait Analysis.” Clinical gait analysis is a non-invasive method used to identify abnormalities in human walking patterns. This work introduces the potential to shift clinical gait assessments from specialized labs to the comfort of patients’ homes, marking a major step in healthcare accessibility. |
 | NVIDIA Award Supports Advancement of LLM Research on the Edge Jingwei Sun, PhD, Assistant Professor in Computer & Information Science & Engineering, is the PI of a new NVIDIA Academic Grant Award, alongside collaborator My T. Thai, PhD. Their project, titled “Personalized BP-free Federated Learning System for LLMs on the Edge,” aims to revolutionize how large language models (LLMs) learn and adapt on real-world edge devices. The goal is a scalable solution that keeps user data private, delivers efficient operation, and provides user-specific personalization. |
 | UF’s RoboPI lab making waves with marine robots The ocean is unforgiving, Md Jahidul Islam, Ph.D., will tell you. And as director of the University of Florida’s RoboPI Laboratory, Islam is immersed in marine robotics research to ease the danger for humans working and exploring in the ocean. Islam’s research includes underwater robotic navigation, underwater data center protection and underwater cave exploration. |
 | Smart Wearables, Smarter Architecture: How One Device Pushes AIoT Innovation For the student demo session of the Warren B. Nelms Annual IoT Conference 2025, computer engineering student David Bickram set out to design a smart wearable to address gaps in existing assistive hearing technology. His device, Safe&Sound, can detect and classify environmental sounds and respond instantly, privately, and reliably. But the device’s architecture proved to be the most notable takeaway of his project. |
 | Sudipta Paria Awarded Certificate of Outstanding Merit PhD student Sudipta Paria has received the Certificate of Outstanding Merit, a distinction awarded to selected international students in recognition of their exceptional achievements and contributions to the UF community. |
 | Side-Channel Security Paper Earns Top Picks in Hardware and Embedded Security A collaborative paper on side-channel security has received prominent recognition in the field of hardware security. The paper, “VALIANT: An EDA Flow for Side-Channel Leakage Evaluation and Tailored Protection,” was selected for Top Picks in Hardware and Embedded Security at the 2025 International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD). The study, originally published in IEEE Transactions on Computers, introduces VALIANT, a novel EDA tool designed to evaluate and mitigate side-channel information leakage vulnerabilities in hardware designs. |
 | View Research Portfolio We invite you to browse our current and ongoing research projects. Our research addresses major world challenges relating to public health, energy, education, transportation, and more. We envision a future where people, things, processes, and data are connected in a more intelligent, more energy efficient, and more secure way. |