Our Goal
Here at NEXT Lab (Led by Dr. Tao Wei), our research interests fall in the broad area of Cypher Physical System and Security. Current research includes two thrusts:
1. Low SWaP-C (Size, Weight, Power and Cost) edge sensing devices through bridging and exploiting advances in both RF/optical devices and embedded heterogeneous computing systems.
2. Runtime low-overhead anti-probing and anti-tampering technologies to protect edge sensing and computing devices.
NEXT Lab is hiring (click me)!!!
NEXT Lab published papers on leading Instrumentation Journals, including IEEE TIM (Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement), IEEE/OSA JLT (Journal of Lightwave Technologies), IEEE JSTQE (Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics), etc. as well as top Reconfigurable Computing and Architecture Conferences, including ACM/IEEE ISCA (International Symposium on Computer Architecture), ACM/SIGDA FPGA, IEEE FCCM (Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines), FPL (The International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications), etc. (Publication List)
Lab alumni are working in the areas of RF design, chip design, FPGA design, and system design with technology giants such as Apple, Amazon, Analog Device, Infineon, etc.).
NEXT Lab is well funded by NSF, ONR, NASA, and industry partners.
In the News
January 2022 Casimir Ryan has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
December 2021 Christopher Charron has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher (Co-advised with Dr. Jeong from Power Electronics Lab).
November 2021 Miaoxiang (Michelle) Yu has joined NEXT Lab as a graduate researcher.
October 2021 Jeremy Bornstein has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 2021 James Morris and McKensie Sherlock has joined NEXT Lab as graduate researchers. Both of them were undergraduate researchers at NEXT Lab.
August 2021 In collaboration with High Performance Computing Lab (HPCL), NEXT Lab received a 4-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study a new in-sensor computing architecture for intelligent 3-D imaging systems, namely, PARIS (Phased Array Radar with In-Sensor Computing).
August 2021 Kartik Mohanty has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
July 2021 Dr. Wei delivered an invited talk for Amazon 126 lab (Sunnyvale, CA) to its Back to School Summer Session, titled “Circuit Design Practices”.
June 2021 Dr. Wei received 2021 URI Advanced Career Faculty Research and Scholarship Excellence Award in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering.
May 2021 Jonathan Pollard has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
May 2021 Jessica Yang has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
April 2021 Kevin Rivera has joined NEXT Lab as a graduate researcher. He is also a graduate researcher in Dr. Otto Gregory’s Lab.
February 2021 Maxwell Bublitz has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
November 2020 In collaboration with Computational Intelligence and Self-Adaptive Systems (CISA) Lab, Network Security and Trust (NEST) Lab, NEXT Lab received a 3-year grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to explore fundamentally new methods to enhance hardware security of a digital twin system.
October 2020 In collaboration with High Performance Computing Lab (HPCL), NEXT Lab received a 4-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study a new hardware security architecture, DIVOT (Detecting Impedance Variation Of Transmission-lines), to countermeasure a variety of hardware-based probing attacks on interconnection I/O busses.
September 2020 Zaynah Kalaoun has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 2020 McKensie Sherlock has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
August 2020 Zheyi (Clark) Yao successfully defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations!
July 2020 Ming Liu successfully defended his MS thesis. Congratulations!
July 2020 Lukas Leuenberger successfully defended his MS thesis. Congratulations!
July 2020 James Morris has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
January 2020 Lukas Leuenberger has joined NEXT Lab as a visiting scholar. He is pursuing his MS degree at HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil, Switzerland.
January 2020 Maxwell Tyree has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 2019 Cameron Marcille has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
September 2019 In collaboration with Dr. Jim Miller‘s and Dr. Gopu Potty‘s Lab from Department of Ocean Engineering at URI, and Dr. Peter H. Schultz from Brown University, NEXT Lab received 3-year fund from NASA to study a novel LiDAR for space applications.
January 2019 Zhenyu (Alfred) Xu has joined NEXT Lab as a graduate researcher.
July 2018 Dr. Wei received 2018 URI Intellectual Property Excellence Award
excellence award.
May 2018 Thomas Mauldin (EE) has joined NEXT Lab as a graduate researcher. He started as an undergraduate researcher at NEXT lab since senior year.
November 2017 Elliott Koehn (EE) has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
October 2017 Stefan Knipp (EE) has joined NEXT Lab as a graduate researcher. He is an International Engineering Program (IEP) exchange student from Germany.
October 2017 Eduardo Gregorio Sainz (EE) has joined NEXT Lab as a graduate researcher. He is an International Engineering Program (IEP) exchange student from Spain.
September 2017 Zhen (Brian) Chen accepted the offer from Cypress Semiconductor at San Jose, CA. He will start his career as a system engineer.
August 2017 Ethan McClure finished his project at NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
August 2017 Rassoul Diouf finished his project at NEXT Lab as an undergraduate student.
July 2017 Dr. Wei was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.
July 2017 Zhen (Brian) Chen successfully defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations!
May 2017 Zheyi (Clark) Yao has joined NEXT Lab as a PhD candidate.
February 2017 Dr. Wei received Office of Naval Research (ONR) 2017 Young Investigator Program (YIP) award. NEXT Lab will receive 3-year fund to study a new laser-based sensing platform.
September 2016 Ethan McClure (EE) has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
June 2016 Jason Yang (EE) has joined NEXT Lab as an undergraduate researcher.
February 2016 In collaboration with Dr. Otto Gregory’s Lab from Department of Chemical Engineering , NEXT Lab received 1-year fund from Pilgrim Screw Corporation through R.I. Commerce Corp. innovation voucher to study a novel RFID tag.
January 2016 Tyler Creighton (CpE) and Christian DICecco (EE) have joined NEXT Lab as undergraduate researchers.
November 2015 Zhen (Brian) Chen won the Enhancement of Graduate Research Award (EGRA) from Graduate School of URI! NEXT Lab viewed it as a great student achievement. Congratulations!
October 2015 A URI capstone team within the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering (ECBE) , including 3 electrical engineers and 1 computer engineer, was formed to join NEXT Lab to prototype innovative sensing technologies. Team members: Ian Mace (EE senior), Paris McGee (EE senior), Luis Orús (EE senior, exchange student from Spain), and Matthew Winter (CpE senior).
August 2015 In collaboration with URI Seismology Lab from the Graduate School of Oceanography, NEXT Lab received a 1.25-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study a new, RF cable based strain sensing technology to meet the challenge in measuring very small deformation and motion of earth.
June 2015 In collaboration with Dr. Jimmie Oxley’s Lab from Department of Chemistry at URI, and Dr. Otto Gregory’s Lab from Department of Chemical Engineering, NEXT Lab received 1-year fund from Israeli government to study a D-shaped fiber sensor for chemical vapor sensing applications.
May 2015 NEXT Lab received the proposal development award from URI Research council to collect preliminary data for future proposal writing.
March 2015 In collaboration with Dr. Jimmie Oxley’s Lab from Department of Chemistry at URI, NEXT Lab received a 3-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study a new, ultra-fast, and affordable velocitimeter technology, Microwave Photonic Velocimetry, to meet the challenge in measuring high-speed shock wave in various materials.
January 2015 The Providence Journal has published a piece covering our most recent NSF-grant winning proposal, Reflex-Tree, in an article entitled: URI engineering professors win National Science Foundation grant to develop sensors, computer architecture for ‘smart cities’.
August 2014 In collaboration with High Performance Computing Lab (HPCL) and Computational Intelligence and Self-Adaptive Systems (CISA) Lab, NEXT Lab received a 4-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study a new computing and communication architecture, Reflex-Tree, with massive parallel sensing, data processing, and control functions designed to meet the challenges imposed by future smart cities.
August 2013 Zhen (Brian) Chen has joined NEXT Lab as a PhD candidate.
July 2013 Gerald Hefferman has joined NEXT Lab as a research engineer.