Training the Next Generation

Growing up, Yufei Tang, Ph.D., spent time breaking apart televisions and handheld radios, and reassembling them, just to learn how they worked.

“I learned something new about the way electrical circuits worked each time I reassembled the electronics,” said Tang, a newly-hired assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Tang also grew up with educators as parents, and said he knew he would follow in their footsteps. His father, a high school physics teacher, piqued Tang’s love for science, while his mother, a music teacher, instilled in him the importance of learning.

After earning degrees in electrical engineering in China, he moved to the U.S. to earn his doctorate degree from the University of Rhode Island, where he was trained to design intelligent systems for electric power grids with renewable energy.

Now, Tang has earned a prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is the culmination of all of interests. As the lead investigator on the $160,000 NSF grant, Tang will mentor student researchers who will be exploring cyberattacks using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The good thing about the data collected from the sensors that measure our systems, is that once I understand them, I can train students to predict when a possible cyberattack may occur,” he said.

With this grant, titled “Interdisciplinary Training of Data-Centric Security and Resilience of Cyber-Physical Energy Infrastructures,” Tang said he will provide undergraduate and graduate students as well as other researchers hands-on training, combining expertise across electrical engineering, communication and data science. Using the latest AI technology, they will examine how a cyberattack affects an electric power grid and how AI can be used to detect, mitigate and prevent those cyberattacks.

“This award is very important to me because it will lay out the foundation for my future research,” said Tang, adding that his research interests include machine learning, data mining and applications in marine renewable energy and cyber-physical systems — a computer system in which a mechanism is controlled or monitored by computer-based algorithms like autonomous automobile systems or medical monitoring.

Tang, who is also a fellow with the Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering, said he is excited about the opportunity to work with his department and ready to nurture the next generation of engineers. “It also demonstrates the passions that I have to educate future engineers with hands-on knowledge that is unlike anything they have seen before.”