The International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) is a leading forum for hardware security researchers. This travel grant enables student researchers to attend the symposium.

The intellectual merit of this proposed activity includes professional development for undergraduate and graduate students as well as continued growth of the symposium. HOST 2022 will be held in Washington D.C, USA on June 27-30, 2022. This project provides opportunities for students to receive travel support to attend HOST 2022 to enable them to learn about the latest design methods, architectures, circuits, and novel applications of secure hardware.

Technical contributions from previous symposia have covered topics such as: (1) Hardware Obfuscation, (2) counterfeit detection and avoidance, (2) side channel analysis and fault analysis, (3) hardware architectures, (4) Hardware security primitives and protocols, (5) Postquantum cryptography, (6) Hardware Trojan and (7) System/Board level security. The travel grants encourage more students to consider a technical submission, participation in growing hardware demonstration space to a large diverse audience.

key outcomes of the project include:

Hardware (i.e., integrated circuit chips, printed circuit boards, and firmware) is the most critical layer to cybersecurity, that supports the architecture and system level security as root of trust. New processes that integrate security and trust into design flows and add hardware features to enable trusted execution are complex and require a concerted, multidisciplinary effort. To this end, the mission of the IEEE Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) is (1) to be a leading and globally recognized forum that unites researchers, practitioners, and users from the computer security, microelectronics, and EDA communities; (2) to disseminate cutting-edge ideas, technologies, and results in areas of overlap between hardware and security; (3) to provide a platform for leaders in industry, government, and academia to share their unique perspectives and to help shape the direction and priorities of the community; and (4) to address shortages in the security workforce by recruiting and training students from a diverse group for productive careers with prospective employers.

The primary goal of this project was to engage as many students as possible who would attend HOST for the first time and would not normally attend HOST (high school, undergrads, MS students, PhD student who do not have papers, etc.). A secondary goal was to provide opportunities to as many students from underrepresented groups as possible, such as women, minorities, and persons with disabilities. The hope is that this will get such students interested in pursuing a PhD in hardware security. A third goal was to put students in touch with as many industry employers as possible. Being one of the premier events in hardware security technology and research, these students who attend HOST will have a chance to talk with senior researchers from government, industry, and academia and to get exposed to the latest research in hardware security. Further, HOST offers many other activities to aid in student professional development, such as (1) Technical Talks, (2) Student Demos and Competition; (3) Student Work-in-Progress Posters competition; (4) Tutorial Day (5) PhD Dissertation Competition (6) Microelectronics competition and (7) Organize Exhibition to improve the industry and student interaction. HOST provides best paper, demo, and poster awards to motivate and reward the top student researchers. In addition, HOST 2022 included several new activities to increase interaction between students and potential employers in industry: In-person Exhibition and Industry Mentoring, Microelectronics competitions, PhD Dissertation competition and Work-in-progress.

The HOST organizing committee created an application system for students to provide their background information and express interest in attending HOST 2022. The call for applications was posted on the HOST website and social media. Further, the committee asked the call for applications to be e-mailed by leaders of national groups representing women and minorities to increase their participation. Over the deadline, HOST received over 94 applications. The demographical information of the students who submitted applications and were offered travel support was as follows: Female: 18.7%, Male: 81.25%. Some students who were offered the grant unfortunately could not attend ? this was primarily due to the pandemic that caused HOST 2022, and others could not attend due to finals and other institutional obligations. Nevertheless, accommodations of 48 students were supported by NSF to attend the tutorials, industry mentoring session, and main conference while a few other students were supported by industry.

HOST was able to meet many of the goals that it had set forth. Other important outcomes were as follows. 72.9% of the student travel grant recipients were first time attendees of HOST. Over 60% of students shared CVs with industry sponsors. HOST 2022 was the first event after covid that was organized in-person and it was a remarkable achievement to bring 285 HOST attendees and 110 Tutorial attendees and exhibitors in-person first time participating to have an improved industry and student.

Last Modified: 08/25/2023
Modified by: Fareena Saqib