New Mexico State University campus
New Mexico State University · Las Cruces, NM. Photo: NMSU
Faculty Page · Est. 2026

Banafsheh Saber Latibari

Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
New Mexico State University · Las Cruces, NM
Prospective Students — Inquiries about Ph.D., M.S., and undergraduate openings are welcome by email.
I

About

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at New Mexico State University.

Before joining NMSU, I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the ECE Department at the University of Arizona. I also served as an affiliate member of the Center for Semiconductor Manufacturing.

I completed my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Davis in 2024, with a dissertation on the small evolution of vision transformers for low-power devices. I hold an M.S. in Computer Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from K.N. Toosi University of Technology.

Education

2024
Ph.D., Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of California, Davis
2017
M.S., Computer Engineering
Sharif University of Technology
2014
B.S., Computer Engineering
K.N. Toosi University of Technology

Research Areas

Deep Learning Computer Vision Generative AI NLP Reliable Computing Computer Architecture ML for RTL Design GPU / FPGA / ASIC Embedded Systems & IoT
II

Publications

10 journal articles, 20 conference papers, and 2 book chapters.

  1. 10.
    Stealthy Hardware Trojans in AI Accelerators: Attacks on Transformer, CNN, and Systolic Architectures
    H. Kumar Dharavath*, B. Saber Latibari*, K. I. Gubbi, M. A. Chowdhury, S. Ghimire, R. Yasaei, P. Satam, A. Sasan, H. Homayoun, S. Salehi (*Equal Contribution)
    IEEE Micro
  2. 9.
    DDD-GenDT: Dynamic Data-driven Generative Digital Twin Framework
    Y. Lin, Q. Shi, Z. Yang, B. Saber Latibari, S. Shao, S. Salehi, P. Satam
    IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, 2025
  3. 8.
    Autonomous Vehicle Security: Hybrid Threat Modeling Approach
    A. Yousseef, Y. Lin, S. Satam, B. Saber Latibari, J. Pacheco, S. Salehi, S. Hariri, P. Satam
    IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology, 2025
  4. 7.
    HWRiSe: AI-enabled Hardware Weakness Root Cause Analysis and Storytelling Framework with LLM-assisted Mitigation Suggestion
    S. Ghimire, Y. Lin, M. Mamun, M. A. Chowdhury, F. Alemi, S. Cai, J. Guo, M. Zhu, H. Li, B. Saber Latibari, S. Rafatirad, P. Satam, S. Salehi
    Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems, 2025
  5. 6.
    Optimizing Vision Transformers: Unveiling "Focus and Forget" for Enhanced Computational Efficiency
    B. Saber Latibari, H. Homayoun, A. Sasan
    IEEE Access, 2025
  6. 5.
    Transformers: A Security Perspective
    B. Saber Latibari, N. Nazari, M. A. Chowdhury, K. I. Gubbi, C. Fang, S. Ghimire, E. Hosseini, H. Sayadi, H. Homayoun, S. Salehi, A. Sasan
    IEEE Access, 2024
  7. 4.
    Cross-Core Data Sharing for Energy-Efficient GPUs
    H. Falahati, M. Sadrosadati, Q. Xu, J. Gómez-Luna, B. Saber Latibari, H. Jeon, S. Hessabi, H. Sarbazi-Azad, O. Mutlu, M. Annavaram, M. Pedram
    ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization, 2024
  8. 3.
    Optimized and Automated Secure IC Design Flow: A Defense-in-Depth Approach
    K. I. Gubbi, B. Saber Latibari, M. A. Chowdhury, A. Jalilzadeh, E. Yazdandoost Hamedani, S. Rafatirad, A. Sasan, H. Homayoun, S. Salehi
    IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I (TCAS-I), 2024, Special Issue on Learning, Optimization, and Implementation for Circuits and Systems Driven by AI
  9. 2.
    Advanced Reinforcement Learning Solution for Clock Skew Engineering: Modified Q-Table Update Technique for Peak Current and IR Drop Minimization
    S.A. Beheshti-Shirazi, N. Nazari, K. I. Gubbi, B. Saber Latibari, S. Rafatirad, H. Homayoun, A. Sasan, S. Manoj
    IEEE Access, 2023
  10. 1.
    Hardware Trojan Detection using Machine Learning: A Tutorial
    K. I. Gubbi, B. Saber Latibari, A. Srikanth, T. Sheaves, S. A. Beheshti-Shirazi, S. Manoj P. D., S. Rafatirad, A. Sasan, H. Homayoun, S. Salehi
    ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, 2023
  1. 20.
    Semantic Smoothing via Novel View Synthesis for Robust SAR Image Classification
    D. Brignac, F. Tian, B. Latibari, A. Mahalanobis, R. Tandon
    ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI'26), Finger Lakes, NY, June 22–24, 2026
  2. 19.
    Lightweight SAR Ship Detection via Contrastive Distillation
    S. Devasundaram, B. Saber Latibari, A. Mahalanobis
    GLSVLSI'26, Finger Lakes, NY, June 22–24, 2026
  3. 18.
    Fine-Grained Patching via Contention Balancer: A Practical Mitigation Strategy for Spectre Vulnerabilities Using SpecScope Contention Maps
    N. Nazari, B. Saber Latibari, H. Mohammadi Makrani, E. Hosseini, C. Fang, S. Rafatirad, K. Kahswane, A. Mahalanobis, H. Sayadi, H. Homayoun
    International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED'26), San Francisco, CA, April 8–10, 2026
  4. 17.
    Is Mamba Reliable for Medical Imaging?
    B. Saber Latibari, N. Nazari, D. Brignac, H. Sayadi, H. Homayoun, A. Mahalanobis
    ISQED'26, San Francisco, CA, April 8–10, 2026
  5. 16.
    FaRAccel: FPGA-Accelerated Defense Architecture for Efficient Bit-Flip Attack Resilience in Transformer Models
    N. Nazari, B. Saber Latibari, E. Hosseini, F. Movafagh, C. Fang, H. Mohammadi Makrani, A. Mahalanobis, S. Rafatirad, H. Sayadi, H. Homayoun
    IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD'25)
  6. 15.
    Hammering the Diagnosis: Rowhammer-Induced Stealthy Trojan Attacks on ViT-Based Medical Imaging
    B. Saber Latibari, N. Nazari, H. Sayadi, H. Homayoun, A. Mahalanobis
    ICCD'25
  7. 14.
    RAG-PRISM: A Personalized, Rapid, and Immersive Skill Mastery Framework with Adaptive Retrieval-Augmented Tutoring
    G. Raul, Y. Lin, K. Patel, B. Shih, W. Redondo, B. Saber Latibari, J. Pacheco, S. Salehi, P. Satam
    Frontiers in Education (FIE'25)
  8. 13.
    Integrating Generative AI into Cybersecurity Education: A Study of OCR and Multimodal LLM-assisted Instruction
    K. Patel, Y. Lin, G. Raul, B. Shih, W. Redondo, B. Saber Latibari, J. Pacheco, S. Salehi, P. Satam
    FIE'25
  9. 12.
    Joint Classification and Unknown Detection Using Class Conditional Probability
    D. Brignac, A. Cuellar, B. Saber Latibari, A. Mahalanobis
    IEEE International Symposium on Signal & Systems (ISSCS'25)
  10. 11.
    Personalized Education with Generative AI and Digital Twins: VR, RAG and Zero-Shot Sentiment Analysis for Industry 4.0 Workforce Development
    Y. Lin, K. Patel, A. Alhamadah, S. Ghimire, J. Pacheco, B. Saber Latibari, S. Salehi, P. Satam
    American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE'25)
  11. 10.
    Power Side-Channel Leakage Assessment of FPGA-Based Spiking Neural Networks
    V. Pugazhenthi, M. A. Chowdhury, S. Ghimire, H. Kumar Dharavath, B. Saber Latibari, S. Salehi
    IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS'25), Lansing, MI, Aug 10–13, 2025
  12. 9.
    Transformers for Secure Hardware Systems: Applications, Challenges, and Outlook
    B. Saber Latibari, N. Nazari, A. Sasan, H. Homayoun, P. Satam, S. Salehi, H. Sayadi
    GLSVLSI'25, New Orleans, LA, June 30–July 2, 2025
  13. 8.
    Reliability of Capacitive Read in Arrays of Ferroelectric Capacitors
    S. Fehlings, M. A. Chowdhury, B. Saber Latibari, S. Salehi, E. Covi
    IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS'25), London, UK, May 25–28, 2025
  14. 7.
    HLGM: A Novel Methodology for Improving Model Accuracy Using Saliency-Guided High and Low Gradient Masking
    A. Karkehabadi, B. Saber Latibari, H. Homayoun, A. Sasan
    14th International Conference on Information Science and Technology, Chengdu, China, Dec 6–9, 2024
  15. 6.
    IRET: Incremental Resolution Enhancing Transformer
    B. Saber Latibari, S. Salehi, H. Homayoun, A. Sasan
    GLSVLSI'24, Tampa, FL, June 12–14, 2024
  16. 5.
    Automated Hardware Logic Obfuscation Framework Using GPT
    B. Saber Latibari, S. Ghimire, M. A. Chowdhury, N. Nazari, K. I. Gubbi, A. Sasan, H. Homayoun, S. Salehi
    IEEE Dallas Circuits and Systems Conference (DCAS'24), Dallas, TX, April 19–21, 2024
  17. 4.
    Securing On-Chip Learning: Navigating Vulnerabilities and Potential Safeguards in Spiking Neural Network Architectures
    N. Nazari, K. I. Gubbi, B. Saber Latibari, M. A. Chowdhury, C. Fang, A. Sasan, S. Rafatirad, H. Homayoun, S. Salehi
    ISCAS'24, Singapore, May 19–22, 2024
  18. 3.
    A Survey on FHE Acceleration
    B. Saber Latibari, K. I. Gubbi, H. Homayoun, A. Sasan
    DCAS'23, Dallas, TX, April 19–21, 2023
  19. 2.
    RAPTA: A Hierarchical Representation Learning Solution for Real-Time Prediction of Path-Based Static Timing Analysis
    T. Chowdhury, A. Vakil, B. Saber Latibari, S.A. Beheshti-Shirazi, A. Mirzaeian, X. Guo, S. Manoj PD, H. Homayoun, A. Sasan
    GLSVLSI'22, Irvine, CA, June 6–8, 2022
  20. 1.
    Adaptive-Gravity: A Defense Against Adversarial Samples
    A. Mirzaeian, Z. Tian, S. Manoj PD, B. Saber Latibari, I. Savidis, H. Homayoun, A. Sasan
    23rd International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED'22), San Francisco, CA, April 23–25, 2022
  1. 2.
    Generative AI in Higher Education Assessment: Theory, Practice, and Ethical Implications (Part II.3)
    Y. Lin, K. Patel, A. Alhamadah, B. Shih, M. Redondo, D. Corona, B. Saber Latibari, J. Pacheco, S. Salehi, P. Satam
    Springer, 2026
  2. 1.
    Machine Learning Techniques for Detecting Hardware Trojans in ASIC Designs (Chapter 4)
    K. I. Gubbi, B. Saber Latibari, S. Rafatirad, A. Sasan, S. Salehi, H. Homayoun
    In Advances in Hardware Design for Security and Trust, CRC Press, 2025
III

Teaching

EE 526/462 Computer System Architecture Fall 2026

IV

Students & Mentoring

Building the CORTEX Lab, Computing for Optimized, Reliable, and Trustworthy Edge eXecution, at NMSU. Ph.D., M.S., and undergraduate students interested in joining are welcome to reach out.

V

News

2026

Joined New Mexico State University as Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Jun 2026

Two papers accepted to the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI'26), Finger Lakes, NY.

Apr 2026

Two papers accepted to the International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED'26), San Francisco, CA. Served as Session Chair.

2026

Appointed Guest Editor for a Special Issue of MDPI Sensors.

2025

Served as Session Chair for the Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium, San Diego, CA.

2025

Two papers accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD'25), Dallas, TX.

VI

Contact

Email
BSL@NMSU.edu
Department
Klipsch School of Electrical & Computer Engineering, New Mexico State University
Location
Las Cruces, New Mexico
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