Kevin Joseph Leach

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Bio

I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University. Previously, I was a Senior Research Fellow in the Computer Science and Engineering Division at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, where I was engaged in a variety of research spanning security, software engineering, and artificial intelligence. Prior to UM, I was a Research Scientist in the Robust Low Power VLSI group at the University of Virginia. I received my PhD in Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia under the guidance of Wes Weimer. I work across a variety of disciplines, including systems security, software engineering and human studies, conversational artificial intelligence, and medical informatics.

I received my MS in Computer Science at George Mason University in 2013. My advisor was Angelos Stavrou. I received my BS with Distinction in Computer Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Virginia in 2011.

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Spring 2024

I am teaching CS8395 - Topics in Computer Security during the Spring 2024 semester. You should totally take this course.

The course website is available here. This is a research-focused seminar course that will acquaint you with recent computer security research. We will cover a variety of topics including malware and computer viruses, botnets, autonomous vehicle security, trusted execution environments, virtual machines, and network security. There are no prerequisites for the course, however you will need to use virtual machines and the command line to complete the assignments. However, the primary goal of this course is to read and discuss research papers.

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Fall 23: CS3276 - Compilers — Course website— Student reviews.

Spring 23: CS8395 - Topics in Computer Security— Course website— Student reviews.

Fall 22: CS3276 - Compiler Construction— Course website — Student reviews.

Spring 22: CS8395 - Topics in Computer Security — Course website — Student reviews.

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Previous Teaching at UM

Winter 2021: EECS 481 — Software Engineering.

Fall 2020: EECS 481 — Software Engineering and EECS 484 — Databases.

Summer 2020: EECS 485 — Web Systems.

Spring 2020: EECS 481 — Software Engineering.

Winter 2020: EECS 498 — Conversational AI.

Fall 2019: I helped teach EECS 498 — Conversational AI.

Winter 2019: EECS 370 — Computer Organization.

Winter 2018: EECS 483 — Compiler Construction.

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Milestones at a Glance

• September 2023 — I received an NSA grant ($750,000) to study classification of malware with neural networks (with Taylor Johnson).
• September 2023 — Along with several VU faculty and industrial researchers, our team has received a DARPA grant to build infrastructure for testing autonomous network security agents.
• September 2023 — I received an NSF SaTC EDU grant ($500,000) to develop a middle school robotics and security curriculum in Tennessee (along with Akos Ledeczi and Corey E Brady).
• June 2023 — I received a Seeding Success grant ($120,000) to develop infrastructure for using conversational AI agents to support mental health.
• May 2023 — I have been invited to serve as a Visiting Scientist with the Air Force Research Laboratory this summer with the Griffis Institute.
• April 2023 — I received an Amazon Research Award to support our group's efforts to improve robustness in document classification.
• January 2022 — I have accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professorship at Vanderbilt University.
• September 2017 — I accepted a Senior Research Fellow position at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
• December 2016 — I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation.
• April 2016 — I received the Louis T. Rader Graduate Research Award.
• May 2015 — I successfully defended my dissertation proposal.
• August 2014 — I successfully passed my Qualifying Exam.
• January 2014 — I received an $81k grant from MIT Lincoln Laboaratory to support my PhD research.
• May 2013 — I received my MS in Computer Science from George Mason University