Bimal Viswanath

Dr. Bimal Viswanath is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. His research focuses on security and privacy aspects of large online services, particularly at the intersection of machine learning and security. His work covers three main directions: attacks using ML, attacks on ML systems, and ML for improved security/privacy. He has received multiple awards including the Distinguished Paper Award at SOUPS 2014 and Best Paper Award at COSN 2015.

Dr. Viswanath completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems and was a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB's SAND lab. His research group currently includes several PhD students working on security and machine learning projects. His work has been supported by grants from CCI, NSF and 4-VA.

Recent research has focused on security challenges in generative AI systems, including deepfake detection, chatbot vulnerabilities, and adversarial attacks on ML systems. His team develops practical defenses against emerging threats in AI-powered systems.

Teaching activities include courses on Foundation Models and Security, Secure Computing Capstone, and Security Analytics. Dr. Viswanath serves on program committees for top security conferences including CCS, USENIX Security, and IEEE S&P.