Xenofon Koutsoukos, Vanderbilt University professor of electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science, has been named an IEEE Fellow by the Board of Directors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
The honor – effective Jan. 1, 2018 – recognizes Koutsoukos for his contributions to the design of resilient cyber-physical systems. His research work is in the area of cyber-physical systems with emphasis on security and resilience, control, diagnosis and fault tolerance, formal methods, and adaptive resource management.
The grade of fellow is one of the IEEE’s highest distinctions, conferred on members with outstanding records of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. The total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one-percent of the total voting membership.
Koutsoukos’ recent work includes an invited paper with seven colleagues at the Vanderbilt Institute for Software Integrated Systems published in the January 2018 Proceedings of the IEEE. The paper describes a modeling and simulation environment that can be used to evaluate attacker–defender behavior by addressing both security and resilience – aspects that have been considered separately or outright overlooked in designing cyber-physical systems (CPS).
“These systems are rapidly finding their way into various sectors of the economy, such as transportation, industrial control systems, healthcare, and critical infrastructure,” Koutsoukos and the co-authors said.
“Whether we recognize it or not, we are in the midst of a pervasive, profound shift in the way humans engineer physical systems and manage their physical environment using networking and information technology. Because of these disruptive changes, physical systems can now be attacked through cyberspace and cyberspace can be attacked through physical means.”
Another paper with ISIS colleagues in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology received a Best Paper Award from 2017 Resilience Week. “Evaluating the Effects of Cyber-Attacks on Cyber Physical Systems using a Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Testbed” was published in September 2017.
Koutsoukos graduated from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. He did his graduate work at the University of Notre Dame, where he received an M.S. and PhD in electrical engineering as well as an M.S. in applied mathematics.
He joined Vanderbilt School of Engineering in 2002, received tenure in 2009, and was promoted to full professor in 2014. Co-inventor of four U.S. patents, Koutsoukos also has published numerous journal and conference papers. He received an NSF Career Award in 2004, the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009, and the 2011 Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Associate Administrator Award in Technology and Innovation from NASA.