[My lab has several Ph.D. openings in large language models, agentic AI, and hardware security for Spring/Fall 2027. If you are interested, please email me your CV and academic transcripts.]
Dr. Xiaolong Guo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Lehigh University. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida in 2019. His research focuses on large language models, hardware security, and formal verification.
Dr. Guo has received numerous accolades for his research, including Best Paper Awards at DATE 2019 and AsianHost 2020, and a Best Paper Nomination at ASP-DAC 2021. Prior to joining Lehigh University, he was recognized with the Outstanding Assistant Professor Award (2024) and the Mark and Brenda Brown Professorship (2026) from the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University, as well as the First Award and REI Award from Kansas NSF EPSCoR. He is also the recipient of the 2024 NSF CAREER Award.
Research Interests:
Large Language Model (LLM) for Cyber Security, Hardware, and Other Domains, Explainable LLM, Edge LLM
Hardware Security, Side-channel Measurements, Microarchitectural Level Security, Hardware and Software Co-Security Verification
Formal Verification, Program Analysis, Hardware-Softawre Co-design
Academic Highlights
Appointment of Mark and Brenda Brown Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative (OATI) Award, Spring 2024
Carl R. Ice College of Engineering Outstanding Assistant Professor Award, 2024
REI Award from Kansas NSF EPSCoR, 2024
Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, Award from the National Science Foundation, 2024.
First Awards from Kansas NSF EPSCoR, 2023
Best Paper Nominate in 26th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC), 2021.
Best Paper Award in IEEE Asian Hardware Oriented Security and Trust Symposium (AsianHOST), 2020.
Best Paper Award in Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition (DATE), 2019.
Funded Research Projects
National Science Foundation (NSF), ``CICI: IPAAI: XAI-Driven Data Forensics for Nuclear Edge LLMs: Provenance, Detection, and Recovery,'' $900K, 2026-2029, Lead Principal Investigator
National Science Foundation (NSF), ``S&CC-PG: Empowering Older Adults to Use Smart Assistive Technology for Combating Financial Exploitation,'' $150K, 2024-2025, Co-Principal Investigator
National Science Foundation (NSF), ``CICI: UCSS: Safeguarding AI in Bioinformatics: Enhancing Cybersecurity in Biological Data Infrastructure,'' $560K, 2024-2027, Lead Principal Investigator
REI Award from Kansas NSF EPSCoR Arise Program, "Guarding the Gatekeepers: Ensuring the Safety of IoT Sensors in Essential Infrastructure'' $50K, 2024-2025, Principal Investigator
National Science Foundation (NSF), ``CAREER: When Learning Meets Reasoning: Mitigating Security Risks with Large Language Models and Causality Inference,'' $500K, 2024-2029, Principal Investigator
First Awards from Kansas NSF EPSCoR Arise Program, "LLM4KSS: Large-language Models for Kansas Science'' $70K, 2023-2024, Principal Investigator
National Science Foundation (NSF), "Collaborative Research: FMitF: TrackI: Property-specific Hardware-oriented Formal Verification Modules for Embedded Systems ,'' 750K, 2020-2024, Principle Investigator in Kansas State University
National Science Foundation (NSF), 'Collaborative Research: PPoSS: Planning: S3-IoT: Design and Deployment of Scalable, Secure, and Smart Mission-Critical IoT Systems ,'' $250K, 2020-2022, Principle Investigator in Kansas State University
Funded Education Projects
Kansas State University Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative (OATI) Award, ``Hardware Security: Attack Techniques and Countermeasures, ECE 890/690,'' $10K, 2024-2025
Lab News
[09/13/2026] Two of our papers on LLM security have been accepted to the AsianHOST 2026 hardware security conference!
[09/01/2026] Our explainable LLM project, “CICI: IPAAI: XAI-Driven Data Forensics for Nuclear Edge LLMs: Provenance, Detection, and Recovery,” has received funding from the NSF CICI program.
[07/10/2026] Our paper “FinHardBench: Can LLMs Generate Latency-Aware Hardware for Financial Computing” has been accepted to the Conference on Language Modeling (COLM 2026)!
[07/01/2026] Our entire team has moved from Kansas State University to Lehigh University. A new journey begins!
[05/26/2026] Our paper “Configuration Over Selection: Hyperparameter Sensitivity Exceeds Model Differences in Open-Source LLMs for RTL Generation” has been accepted to the IEEE International Conference on LLM-Aided Design (LAD/ICLAD 2026)!
[04/23/2026] Dr. Xiaolong Guo got the Mark and Brenda Brown Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, which designates him as a highly regarded K-State educator and researcher in the Mike Wiegers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
[03/22/2026] Zhaoxiang's paper "BlindMarket: Enabling Verifiable, Confidential, and Traceable IP Core Distribution in Zero-Trust Settings" has been accepted to the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) 2026! (https://host.conferences.computer.org/2026/)
[03/22/2026] Kejun's paper "RuntimeShield: Power Distribution Network-Based Root of Trust for Embedded System Security" has been accepted to the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST) 2026! (https://host.conferences.computer.org/2026/)
[03/15/2026] Kejun's paper "AI Assisted Electromagnetic Based Signature Construction in Malware Blacklisting" has been accepted for oral presentation to the 35th Microelectronics Design and Test Symposium. (https://mdts.ieee.org/)
[09/18/2025] Three of our papers on LLM security have been accepted to the hardware security conference AsianHost 2025! (https://www.asianhost.org/2025/)
