Ming “Fred” Li
Professor, IEEE Fellow
Thomas R. Brown Endowed Fellow
University Distinguished Scholar
School of Electrical, Computing, and Software Engineering (ECSE)
Department of Computer Science (By Courtesy)
The University of Arizona
Email: lim@arizona.edu
About Me
Ming “Fred” Li is a Professor in the School of Electrical, Computing, and Software Engineering (ECSE) and holds a courtesy appointment at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Arizona. He was an associate professor from 2015 - 2024. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, he was an Assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Utah State University from 2011 to 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA, in 2011.
Prof. Li’s primary research interests are in general areas of Wireless Intelligence and Cyber Security, with current emphases on AI/ML-driven NextG wireless networks and their security/privacy/resilience, security and robustness of networked autonomous systems, and trustworthy AI/ML systems. He has published more than 150 journal and conference papers, many in top venues (e.g., IEEE TIFS, TDSC, TMC, USENIX Security, Oakland, CCS, NDSS, AAAI, Mobihoc, INFOCOM, etc). His work has been funded by NSF, ONR, ARO, DOE, AWS, etc. His Google Scholar citation count is over 13000, and H-index is 49. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2014, the ONR YIP Award in 2016, and several paper awards, including the best paper award from ACM WiSec 2020. He served on the editorial boards of IEEE TMC and TDSC and is currently an associate editor for IEEE TIFS. He was a TPC Co-chair of IEEE CNS 2022. He is a Fellow of IEEE, and a member of ACM.
Awards and Honors
- Thomas R. Brown Endowed Fellowship, ECE Department, University of Arizona, 2025-2028
- IEEE Fellow, class of 2024, for contributions to information and network security
- ENGR Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentor Award, College of Engineering, University of Arizona, 2023
- Best Paper Award, IEEE SafeThings 2022 Workshop
- Best Poster Award, ACM WiSec 2022 Posters
- GM Security AutoDriving Security Award, AutoSec 2022 Workshop
- Craig M. Berge Dean’s Faculty Fellowship, College of Engineering, University of Arizona, 2020-2023
- Best Paper Award, ACM WiSec 2020
- Distinguished Scholars Award, University of Arizona, 2019
- Distinguished TPC member of IEEE Infocom 2018, 2020
- Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (YIP), 2016
- CCC Blue Sky Ideas Award for Best Vision Papers, ACM SIGSPATIAL 2015
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP), 2015
- National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, 2014
- Distinguished Paper Award, ACM ASIACCS 2013
- USU CS Faculty Research Award, 2013
Publications: [Chronological or by Research Area]
Professional Activities
Journal Editorship
- Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), Dec. 2023 - Present
- Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), Aug. 2019 - Aug. 2023
- Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC), Mar. 2019 – Mar. 2023
- Editor, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC), Nov. 2016 – Nov. 2021
- Editor, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters (WCL), Feb. 2015 – Oct. 2017
- Editor, KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems, Jan. 2013 – Mar. 2015
Conference Organizing Committee
- Tutorials Co-Chair, VehicleSec 2026
- TPC Co-Chair, Inaugural IEEE INFOCOM 2026 Workshop on Integrated Sensing and Communication in FutureG Wireless Technologies (ISAC-FutureG’26)
- TPC Area Chair (for Security Track), The Web Conference (WWW 2025)
- TPC Co-Chair for IEEE CNS 2022
- Lightening Talks Chair, VehicleSec 2023-2024
- TPC Track Co-Chair for IEEE CCNC 2020, Security, Privacy and Content Protection Track
- Workshops Co-Chair for IEEE CNS 2019
- TPC Symposium Co-Chair for IEEE ICC 2018, Communications and Information System Security Symposium
- TPC Co-Chair, 14th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob 2018)
- TPC Vice-Chair for Information Systems, IEEE INFOCOM 2017
- TPC Co-Chair, “Communications and Networking” track, International Conference on Body Area Networks (BodyNets) 2015
- TPC Co-Chair, Cyberspace Safety Track, the 6th International Symposium on Cyberspace Safety and Security (CSS 2014)
- TPC Co-Chair, Cyber Security, Privacy and Trust Track, the 7th International Conference on Broadband, Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA 2012)
- Student Travel Grants Co-Chair, the 34th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM 2015)
- Publicity Co-Chair, The 8th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec 2015)
- Publications Co-Chair, IEEE INFOCOM 2017, 2018
- Publications Chair, The 2nd IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS 2014)
- Web Chair, IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS) 2013, 2015
Conference Program Committee (Selected)
Security and Machine Learning Conferences
- The fifth IEEE Conference on Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning (SaTML 2027)
- USENIX Security Symposium, 2027
- USENIX Security Symposium, 2026
- ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2026), machine learning security track
- ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2025), machine learning security track
- USENIX Security Symposium, 2024
- USENIX Security Symposium, 2023
- ACM CCS 2024, machine learning security track
- ACM CCS 2023, machine learning security track
- Thirty-sixth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2022)
- Annual Computer Security Application Conference (ACSAC), 2020-2022
- ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2015-2016
- ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec), 2015, 2019-2020
- IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS), 2013, 2015-2021
- International Conference on Cryptology and Network Security (CANS), 2016-2017
- International Conference on Information and Communications Security (ICICS), 2012, 2014
- International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT), 2012-2015
Networking and System Conferences
- The 27th International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing (MobiHoc 2026)
- The 20th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2022)
- IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2013-2016, 2018-2023
- IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2020, 2022
- IEEE Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON), 2017
- IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), 2013
- International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP), 2014
- IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM), Communications and Information Systems Security Symposium, 2012-2015; Mobile and Wireless Networks Symposium, 2017
- IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Security, Privacy, and Content Protection Track, 2015
- International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), 2012-2015, 2017
- IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Communication and Information Systems Security Symposium, 2012, 2013, 2015
- IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), Cyber Security and Trusted Computing Track, 2012, 2013, 2015
- International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), Communications and Information Security Symposium, 2014, 2015
Other
- Fellow of IEEE, and member of ACM
- NSF Panelist, 2012-2015, 2017-2018, 2021-2025
- Chair of IEEE ComSoc Tucson Chapter, 2016-2021
- USENIX Campus Representative, USU, 2012 – 2015