Diksha Shukla

Associate Professor
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Wyoming, Laramie

Email: d + lastname [AT] uwyo.edu
Office: EERB 422A

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About Me

I am interested in the security and privacy on computing environments and trustworthiness of digital interactions. Specific research interests include cybersecurity and machine learning. My research spans applications of these areas to wearable devices, biometrics, attack-averse authentication, and side channel attack formulation. My group is currently focusing on the following directions:

• Information Leaks through Side Channels
• Biometric Authentication Systems for Mixed Realty Systems
• Brain Signals as Biometrics
• Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning

My research group, Secure Sensing and Learning (SSL) Research Lab , is located in the Engineering Education and Research Building (EERB) at the University of Wyoming. Before joining UWyo in Fall 2019, I completed my Ph.D. from Syracuse University, EECS in 2019. Prior to that, I received my M.S. in Mathematics from Louisiana Tech University in 2014, and M.S. in Computer Applications from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi India in 2011.

Recent News

• June 2025: Secure Sensing and Learning (SSL) Research Lab is hosting five Summer 2025 REU students and providing research experience in the area of biometrics, attack vector formulation, and AR/VR. this effort is supported by NSF under NSF REU Site: HUMANS MOVE.
  


• May 2025: I will be attanding IEEE Face and Gesture Recognition (FG) Conference 2025 from May 26 to May 30. My student Soudabeh Bolousi will be presenting our paper 'Cognitive and Memory-Driven EEG-Based Authentication: A Multi-Session Approach to Secure Biometric Systems'.
  


• May 2025: Sindhu Reddy Kalathur Gopal recieves her Ph.D. in Computer Science. Congratulations Dr. Kalathur Gopal!! Sindhu will be joining Boise State University as tenure-track Assistant Professor in June 2025.
  


• May 2025: We are organizing an NSF funded IUCRC Planning Meeting to assess the feasibility of establishing an Industry University Cooperative Research Center on AI/ML driven Research in Infrastructure Trust Assurance (AMRITA). The meeting will bring together industry, university, and NSF representatives together to discuss vision, focus, and projects to be conducted under this center. The meeting will be held from May 4th-6th at University of Wyoming Conference Center, Laramie, WY. Find more details about this meeting at the following link: NSF IUCRC AMRITA Planning Meeting.
  


• April 2025: Paper with my students got accepted to be presented at IEEE Face and Gesture Recognition (FG) Conference 2025. Congratulations, Soudabeh! Paper Title: 'Cognitive and Memory-Driven EEG-Based Authentication: A Multi-Session Approach to Secure Biometric Systems'. More details will follow soon.
  


• April 2025: New Undergraduate Student, Assel Aljazwe, joins the research group. Welcome, Assel!
  


• January 2025: New Ph.D. Student, Michael Ryan Stoll, joins the research group. Welcome, Michael!
  


• December 2024: Sindhu Reddy, PhD student in the SSL Research Lab, presents our hand movement biometric research at the International Conference on Biometrics meeting at Atlanta, Georgia.
  


• October 2024: Soudabeh Bolouri, PhD student in the SSL Research Lab, presents our EEG based authentication research at IEEE 4th Cyber Awareness and Research Symposium 2024 (CARS'24), at the University of North Dakota.
  


• September 2024: A new undergraduate student, Zach Nelson, joins the research lab as an REU participant on the BrainCAPTCHA project. Welcome Zach!
  


• September 2024: Paper with my student got accepted to be presented at IEEE 4th Cyber Awareness and Research Symposium 2024 (CARS'24). Congratulations, Soudabeh! Paper Title: 'An EEG-Based User Authentication System Using Event-Related Potentials and Ensemble Learning'. More details will follow soon.
  


• August 2024: Two new master students, Nathaniel Whitham (MS in AI program) and Selma Samet (MS in CS program), join the research lab. Welcome Selma and Nathaniel!
  


• August 2024: Shruthika Sundar, undergraduate reseracher, continues for 2024-2025 academic year as REU student in the lab. She will participate in the research project to explore brain signal based authentication system.
  


• August 2024: We recieved NSF IUCRC Planning grant, IUCRC Planning Grant University of Wyoming: Center for AI/ML Driven Research in Infrastructure Trust Assurance and Sustainability (AMRITAS), to establish the feasibility of creating a site for AMRITAS at the University of Wyoming.
  


• June 2024: We recieved NSF CAREER award, CAREER: BrainCAPTCHA: Completely Automated Test for User Verification Using Dynamic Brain Biometrics, to conduct research on brain signal based authentication systems for augmented and virtual reality systems. UW’s Diksha Shukla Receives NSF CAREER Award to Study Human Brain Functions
  


• May 2024: Three new undergarduate students (Shruthika Sundar, Jorge Pineda, and Amol Gupta) join the research lab as summer 2024 REUs cohort. The students will work on individual projects related to human movements, behaviors, and augmented and virtual reality.
  


• May 2024: I will be attending IEEE Face and Gesture Recognition Conference in Intanbul, Turkey, and will be presenting our paper, HM-Auth: Redefining User Authentication in Immersive Virtual World through Hand Movement Signatures, co-authored with my students, Sindhu Reddy, and Paul Sansah.
  


• January 2024: Kyle Lofthus, Undergraduate researcher in SSL research Lab, graduated with B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wyoming. Kyle will join Industry position. Congratulations, Kyle!
  


• March 2024: Paper with my students got accepted to be presented at IEEE Face and Gesture Recognition (FG) Conference. Congratulations, Sindhu and Paul! Paper Title: 'HM-Auth: Redefining User Authentication in Immersive Virtual World through Hand Movement Signatures'. More details will follow soon.
  


• February 2024: Undergraduate researcher, Zachary Renz, joins the research group. Zach will be exploring potential of handsahke signatures with virtual agents in the extended reality environment for identity science. Welcome, Zach!
  


• January 2024: Undergraduate researcher, Kyle Lofthus, joins the research group. Kyle will be working on brain behavior (EEG signals) analysis for user identity verification and modeling. Welcome, Kyle!
  


• September 2023: We are starting an EECS Colloquium Series in the department. See further details and the scheduled talks here: EECS-Colloquium Series.
  


• August 2023: New Ph.D. Student, Soudabeh Bolouri, joins the research group. Welcome, Soudabeh!
  


• July 2023: My PhD student, Sindhu Reddy, and I will be attending USENIX Security Conference at Anaheim, CA August 9-11. Sindhu will be presenting her work on the attack model on virtual reality. Congratulations, Sindhu!
  


• February 2023: Paper with my student got accepted to be presented at USENIX Security Conference. Congratulations, Sindhu! See full paper here: Hidden Reality Attack Model.
  


• August 2022: Two new Ph.D. Students, Mohamad Zamini, and Iqbal Khatoon, join the research group. Welcome, Mohamad and Iqbal!
  


• July 2022: Undergraduate researcher, Jacob Bahr, joins the research group. Jacob will be working on exploring users' brain response (EEG) for various visual stimuli. Welcome, Jacob!
  


• May 2022: Jacab Hendricks, graduated with BS in CS and a minor in Mathematics degrees. He will join graduate program at Indiana University, Bloomington, in the Fall. Congratulations, Jake!
  


• January 2022: New Ph.D. Student, Paul Sansah, joins the research group. Welcome, Paul!
  


• July 2021: Undergraduate researcher, Jacob Hendricks, joins the research group. Zach will be exploring graph neural networks for online fake information detection and tracking. Welcome, Jake!
  


• June 2021: Two papers with my student got accepted at the IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IEEE IJCB). Congratulations, Sindhu!
  


• January 2021: Paper got accepted at EuroSnP Conference. See full paper here: Second Factor Authentication Model.
  


• April 2020: Paper got accepted for publication at the ACM journal on Digital Threats: Research and Practice. See deatils here: Thinking Unveiled!
  


• January 2020: My first Ph.D. Student, Sindhu Reddy Kalathur Gopal, joins the research group. Welcome, Sindhu! Looking forward to working with you.
  


• August 2019: Joined Computer Science Department at the University of Wyoming as an Assistant Professor.