Meet Our Team
Our lab hosts a number of graduate students pursuing both Masters and Doctoral degrees. We also invite undergraduate students to join us in our research efforts.
Dr. Christophe Bobda
Principle Investigator, Professor
Dr. Bobda has been teaching at the University of Arkansas since 2010. He established the SmartES Lab to explore the various applications for intelligent embedded systems. His work has focused around the fields of reconfigurable hardware and, more recently, cybersecurity.
Post Docorates

Dr. Marjan Asadinia
Postdoctoral Fellow, Computer Engineering
Dr. Asadinia received her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2016. Prior to join University of Arkansas, she was a postdoc at the Oregon State University. Her research interests include Computer Architecture, Network-on-Chip (NoC), New Memory Technologies and Storage Systems.
Ph.D. Students

Pankaj Bhowmik
PhD, Computer Engineering – First Year
Pankaj Bhowmik holds Masters of Engineering Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Lamar University and Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Khulna University of Engineering and Technology. His research interest includes VLSI design, Computer Vision, and embedded system.

Festus Hategekimana
PhD, Computer Engineering – Third Year
Festus holds a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Arkansas. His research interests include secure systems-on-chip design, computer architecture security, and reconfigurable computing. Industry work experience includes SSD Firmware Development at Intel and Hardware Development at Molex.

Andrew Felder
PhD, Computer Engineering – First Year
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from University of Arkansas. His research interests include computer vision in embedded systems and distributed embedded systems.

Juanjuan Li
PhD, Computer Science – Second Year
Juanjuan Li holds a Master of Computer Science and MBA from Arkansas State University. She is a graduate assistant in the team of Virtualization and Storage Systems at the ITS department on campus. Her research interests include resource management and scheduling algorithm in the cloud and virtualization technology.

Joel Mandebi
PhD – First Year
Short bio

Md Jubaer Hossain Pantho
PhD, Computer Engineering- Second Year
Jubaer holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh. His research interests include computer vision, system-on-chip design, distributed camera networks and reconfigurable computing. Industry work experience includes Mobile Software Development at Samsung R&D Institute Bangladesh(SRBD)

Danielle Tchuinkou Kwadjo
PhD – Second Year
Danielle holds a master in Computer Science from the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon. Her research interests include 3D object recognition in embedded system, Machine learning and Collision Avoidance.

Dillon VanBuskirk
PhD, Computer Science – First Year
Dillon holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Arkansas. His research interest is in autonomous systems.

Taylor JL Whitaker
PhD, Computer Engineering – Second Year
Taylor holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Arkansas. His research interests include unmanned systems, distributed embedded systems, and hardware cybersecurity methods.
Master’s Students

Prashant Borhade
Master’s – Second Year
Short bio

Philip Gilley
Master’s – First Year
Short bio
Undergraduate Students
Toren Caldwell
Wassim Ramy
Chenlong “Jim” Lin
Kaylee Rauso
Nicholaus Marsden
Shawn McKay
Past Members
Harold Ishebabi
PhD 2010
Placement: Spectrum, Secodix, SimplexPoint (CEO)
Ali Akbar Zarezadeh
PhD 2012
Placement: DSpace, Paderborn, Germany
Nikhil Thomas
Master’s 2015
Placement: Asteria Aerospace, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Kevin Cheng
PhD 2011
Placement: Posdoc Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France; TEA | Technologie Ergonomie Appliquées, Nancy, Lorraine, France
Philipp Mahr
PhD 2013
Placement: IT-Director (CTO) Hyko by CareToSave
Michael Mefenza
PhD 2015
Placement: Intel Labs, Santa Clara
Felix Mühlbauer
PhD 2012
Placement: Postdoc, University of Potsdam
Franck Yonga
PhD 2015
Placement: Alarm.com
Joseph Fantinel
BS 2017