Di Ma

Di Ma is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Research in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She also serves as Director of the Cybersecurity Center for Education, Research, and Outreach (CCERO) and the Security and Forensics rEsearch (SAFE) Lab, actively leading institutional cybersecurity initiatives since CCERO's founding in 2016.

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of California-Irvine (2009)
• Master of Engineering, Nanyang Technological University
• Bachelor of Engineering, Xi-an Jiaotong University

Dr. Ma's research centers on security, privacy, and applied cryptography with emphasis on connected/autonomous vehicle systems (ECUs, infotainment), smartphone security (malware prevention, acoustic channels), and RFID/sensor protection. She investigates demographic inference from Wi-Fi metadata and develops location-aware cryptographic protocols, focusing on real-world vulnerabilities in transportation and mobile ecosystems. Her work bridges theoretical cryptography with practical safety-critical systems.

Analysis of her 15 most recent publications reveals sustained leadership in automotive cybersecurity since 2012, with increasing focus on vehicle privacy (2019-2020), secure firmware updates, and cross-domain cryptographic access control. Key trends include adapting smartphone security techniques to automotive use cases and pioneering ambient sensor-based defenses against relay attacks, consistently published in IEEE flagship journals.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• Trevor O. Jones Outstanding Paper Award (SAE, 2019)
• CECS Faculty Excellence Award for Research (2017)
• Tan Kah Kee Young Inventor's Award (Silver Medal, 2004)
• NSF-TRUST Fellowship (2009)
• Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship (UC Irvine, 2009)
• Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship (AFOSR, 2011)

Dr. Ma has advised PhD students including Ahmad Nasser (2019) and Nevrus Kaja (2019). Her research is funded by major grants from NSF (DGE-1419280 as PI, 2014), NHTSA (2015, 2017), AFOSR (2011), Ford (2016), Intel, and Research in Motion. Notably, she co-led a $7M Department of Energy project (2020) protecting EV charging infrastructure.

As SAFE Lab Director, she develops security frameworks for mobile/IoT systems while CCERO coordinates university-wide cybersecurity education and outreach. Her teams include Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) groups designing automotive intrusion detection systems, and she organized the inaugural Dearborn Cybersecurity Day (2019) with 130+ industry participants.