National Center for Supercomputing Applications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Phuong M. Cao was born in Phu Tho, Vietnam and currently a U.S. Permanent Resident (EB1). He is a cybersecurity researcher at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His work focuses on securing high-performance computing (HPC) cyberinfrastructure against accidental failures and intentional cyberattacks. His research is driven by network traffic measurements, cyberattack detection using probabilistic models, and formal verification of authentication protocols. As a National Science Foundation Trusted CI Fellow, he provides security expertise to research and education partners, including the FABRIC testbed. He has received awards for his research and mentorship, including a Best Paper Award, a Best Hackathon Award, and recognition as an Outstanding Mentor for Fiddler Innovation Fellowship recipients.
(Name and Biography)
Research Summary: Building resilient and secure supercomputers to advance open-science research in the presence of accidental failures and intentional cyber-attacks.
Proposal Review Panels: Department of Energy (2025) Proposal Review Panels: National Science Foundation (2024, 2025)
Program Committee Member: IEEE DSN 2024 Industry Track, IEEE QCE 2024, IEEE QCE 2025
Journal Reviewer: IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
Fall 2021/2022: Guest Lecturer, Designing MPs for ECE 542 / CS 536: Design of Fault Tolerant Digital Systems
Fall 2020: Designing MPs for ECE 598 RKI: Dependable AI Systems
Fall 2019: Teaching Assistant for ECE 542 / CS 536: Design of Fault Tolerant Digital Systems
Spring 2018: Teaching Assistant for CS 461: Computer Security
Fall 2017: Teaching Assistant for CS 461: Computer Security
Spring 2017: Teaching Assistant for ECE 313: Probability and Statistics