SPIRE Lab
Current and former members of the Security, Privacy, and Reverse Engineering Lab at GMU.
Dr. Tanvir Arafin
PI — Assistant Professor, Cyber Security Engineering
I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Cyber Security Engineering at George Mason University. I received my M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2016 and 2018. My research explores security opportunities in emerging computer architecture, examines the weaknesses in autonomous systems, and builds hardware-derived primitives for developing trusted computation frameworks.
322 Research Hall • 10401 York River Road • Fairfax, VA 22030
Ph.D. Students
Yanze Wu
Ph.D. Student, Cyber Security Engineering
Yanze is a PhD student in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering at George Mason University. He is a member of the SPIRE Lab, advised by Prof. Arafin. His research interests include post-quantum cryptography, reconfigurable computing, and hardware security. He received his M.S. degree in Communication and Information Systems from Hohai University in 2023.
Wangxinlei Chen
Ph.D. Student, Cyber Security Engineering
Wangxinlei is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering at George Mason University. He is a member of the SPIRE Lab, advised by Prof. Arafin. His dissertation research focuses on hardware design for secure autonomous systems. Expected graduation: Fall 2028.
Max Duverneuil
Ph.D. Student, Cyber Security Engineering
Max is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering at George Mason University. He is a member of the SPIRE Lab, advised by Prof. Arafin. His dissertation research focuses on microarchitecture-based power attacks and countermeasures. Expected graduation: Spring 2030.
Graduate Students
Raja Kumar Janga
Graduate Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Raja is a graduate student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at George Mason University and a Graduate Research Assistant in the SPIRE Lab. His research interests include hardware design, 3D-ICs, and supply chain vulnerabilities. He received his B.Tech in Electrical, Electronics and Communication Engineering from IIT Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, India.
Undergraduate Researchers
Al Dur Almaknoon bint Salim Abdullah Al Rawas
Undergraduate Researcher, Cyber Security Engineering
Al Dur is a Cyber Security Engineering graduate from the Sultanate of Oman. She transferred to Mason from the University of South Florida, where she was technical lead of the Google Developer Student Club. At GMU she graduated with outstanding distinction, contributed to a Threat-Hunting research project funded by CCI Nova, and was an active member of the Mason Competitive Cyber Club. Her research in the SPIRE Lab focused on Robot Operating System vulnerabilities.
Philip Stavrev
Undergraduate Researcher, Computer Science
Philip is an undergraduate student in the Computer Science Department at George Mason University and a member of the SPIRE Lab. His research interests include driverless cars, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.