Farinaz Koushanfar

Farinaz Koushanfar is one of Iran’s and also world’s most influential senior research scientist at Rice University and winner of TOP Young 35 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2008, and holder of Ph. D. in Physic & Electrical – statistics engineering from University of California Berkeley with highest honor.

Farinaz Koushanfar was born 1977 in northern Tehran-Iran in the area of Shemiran (Persian شمیرانات also called Shemiranat, center of Shemiranat County and was raised in Farmanieh).Ranking:

Winner of 2008 TOP Young 35 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) award.
Winner of The National Science Foundation (NSF) award.Winner of Intel’s Open Collaborative Research fellowship award.
Winner of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) award.
September 2009: Named among the Nation’s (USA) Outstanding Young Engineers.

Professor in Physic & Electrical/statistics engineering – Rice University at age 29.

فريناز كوشانفر، دانش‌آموخته دانشگاه صنعتي شريف و استاديار جوان مهندسي الكترونيك و رايانه دانشگاه «رايس» كه به دليل ابداع كاربرديش از سوي مجله «تكنولوژي ريويو» دانشگاه به عنوان يكي از 35 مخترع جوان (زير 35 سال) برتر جهان در سال 2008 معرفي شده است

In 1994 after college studies she started at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran-Iran and in 1998 (only 21 years old) she received B.S. in Physic & Electrical engineering with highest honor.

In 1998 she left Iran and moved to USA, Los Angeles and started at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and 2001 at age 24 received M.S. in Physic & Electrical engineering from UCLA with highest honor.

Farinaz Koushanfar is Winner of Women4Change student leadership award at UCLA.

In 2001 Farinaz Koushanfar moved to San Fransisco and started at University of Berkeley and in 2004 (only 27 years old) she received Ph. D. in Physic & Electrical – statistics engineering from University of Berkeley with highest honor.

At the end of 2004 during 6 months she was Fellow of University of Illinois.

2005 – Winner of Intel’s Open Collaborative Research fellowship.

Dr. Koushanfar is winner of best paper award at Mobicom.

In 2006 Dr. Farinaz Koushanfar was the winner of Young Faculty Award (YFA) from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – central research and development agency for the U.S. Department of Defense. The Young Faculty Award (YFA) was awarded to only 24 researchers in the core technology areas covered by the DARPA Microsystems Technology Office, including electronics, micro-electro-mechanical systems, photonics, nanotechnology (including nano-bio), architecture and algorithms.

In July 2006 Farinaz Koushanfar joined Rice university as professor in Physic & Electrical/statistics engineering (only 29 years old).

Prof. Koushanfar is winner of “The National Science Foundation (NSF)” and in 2008 she became TOP Young 35 MIT.

Today, most hardware intellectual property (IP) is fabricated offshore because of lower costs. Koushanfar said, “What is often unnoticed is that hardware piracy is economically much larger than the well-known and well-addressed software piracy.”

Her research protects hardware IP against piracy using techniques such as structural characterization of manufacturing variability, hardware locking and remote disabling. “By careful integration of inherent and unique manufacturing variability into functionality at the design phase, we can generate locks for each integrated circuit,” she said.

“The fabrication house would not be able to operate the copies unless they request the proper keys from us. The techniques are extendable to remote disabling and usage metering.”