Bipana Thapaliya 

PhD Student
Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering
Teaching Assistant
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA

Email: bipana.thapaliya@ttu.edu

Google Scholar | Research Gate | Orcid

About me

Thanks for stopping by! I am Bipana Thapaliya, 4th year PhD student at Texas Tech University specializing in IoT security and machine learning. I work on Physical Unclonable Functions, their silicon experimentation and machine learning based vulnerability study. I am also working on data mining and big data by enhancing clustering techniques for categorical data. Under machine learning and AI, I have worked on neural networks, reinforcement learning, supervised and unsupervised learning, outlier detection, pattern recognition etc. using libraries such as Tensorflow, Keras, PyTorch, Numpy, Scipy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn etc. I also have some data mining skills such as feature engineering, data cleansing, modeling, mining and statistical analysis of data. I can write using the following programming languages: Python, C, C++, Java, C#, PHP. While I am a PhD researcher following my passion, I have also not missed the opportunity to inspire and motivate other aspiring students to follow their dreams via different roles like TA, instructor or tutor. In my free time, I like to travel and explore the outside. I am also fond of dancing and public speaking.

Research

  • My PhD Advisor

    I am fortunate to have University Distinguished Professor Yu Zhuang as my Phd supervisor.

  • Research Interests

    • Machine Learning/ Deep Learning
    • IoT Security
    • Big Data and Data Mining
    • Categorical data clustering
    • Data Analytics

  • Research Experiences

    2018 Aug – Present PhD student researcher

    • Discovered hybrid optimizer enhanced machine learning algorithms for faster training of the neural network.
    • IoT Security (Physical Unclonable Functions or PUFs)
      • Implemented PUFs on hardware using Artix-7 devices alongwith the simulation to test its' security vulnerability on real devices.
      • Identified the security vulnerabilities of different PUFs like multiplexer based PUFs(MPUFs), Exclusive OR (XOR PUFs), Interpose PUFs (IPUFs), feed-forward arbiter PUFs (FFPUFs) using the machine learning based attack studies.
      • Improved and extended neural-network based modeling attacks on XOR PUFs from the literature.
    • Derived fast clustering process for categorical data clustering along with surveying several initialization methods from literature (ongoing).

    2017 Aug – 2017 Oct Softech Research and Innovation Center, Kathmandu, Nepal

    • Research study and technology enhancement in Nepal for smart applications development.

    2016 Jan – 2016 Sept Beckon Delve Pvt. Ltd., India

    • Involved in research and development of phone applications that use potential technologies like AR (augmented reality), Egomotion, Facial recognition system, and Human computer interface.

Teaching Experience

  • Lab Instructor/ Teaching Assistant

    • Fall 2020 - Spring 2021 Computational Thinking with Data Science Whitacre College of Engineering, Texas Tech University, TX, USA
    • Summer 2020 Special Topic in CS, Secure Software Engineering , Department of Computer Science, Texas Tech University, TX, USA
    • Fall 2019 - Spring 2020 Programming Principles I (Python) Department of Computer Science, Texas Tech University, TX, USA
    • Summer 2019 Theory and Practice of Logic Programming Department of Computer Science, Texas Tech University, TX, USA
    • Fall 2018 - Spring 2019 Programming Principles II (C) Department of Computer Science, Texas Tech University, TX, USA

  • Primary Course Instructor

    • Summer 2019, CS Sophomores/Juniors/Seniors Programming Principles II (C) Texas Tech University, TX, USA
    • June 2015 - December 2015 Java Android Programming Regional Center of Entrepreneurship, Chandigarh, India

  • Tutoring

    • Spring 2020, Programming Principles I (Python), LAMP tutoring, Whitacre College of Engineering, Texas Tech University, TX, USA
    • Fall 2020, Computational Thinking with Data Science, Whitacre College of Engineering, Texas Tech University, TX, USA

Education

  • Undergraduate

    • 2015 Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science Engineering
    • Punjab Technical University, Chandigarh, India
    • Division: Distinction
    • Rank: University Topper

Publications

  • Journal Publications

    • Khalid Mursi, Bipana Thapaliya, Yu Zhuang, Mohammed Saeed Alkatheiri, Ahmad O. Aseeri, A Fast Deep Learning Method for Security Vulnerability Study of XOR PUFs, Electronics MDPI, October 2020. Link
    • K. Mursi, B. Thapaliya and Y. Zhuang (2020), “A hybrid-optimizer-enhanced neural network method for the security vulnerability study of multiplexer arbiter PUFs”, Journal of Physics, August 2020.

  • Conference Proceedings

    • B. Thapaliya , K. Mursi, Y. Zhuang, "Machine Learning-based Vulnerability Study of Interpose PUFs as Security Primitives for IoT Networks", To appear in International Conference on Networking, Architecture and Storage, 2021.
    • A. Aseeri, Y. Zhuang, M.S. Alkatheiri and B. Thapaliya , "LaHiIO: Accelerating Persistent Big Data Machine Learning via Latency Hiding IOs", IEEE international Conference on Big Data, 2018. •

Industry Experience

  • Oct 2017 - June 2018, Software Engineer , Percoid IT Solutions, Kathmandu, Nepal
  • Oct 2016 - Oct 2017, Software Engineer , Softech Foundation Pvt. Ltd., Kathmandu, Nepal
  • Jan 2016 - Sept 2016, Java Android Developer and Project Team Leader, Beckon Delve Pvt. Ltd., Chandigarh, India

Awards and Achievements

    • 2021-2022 TTU Helen Devitt Jones Graduate Scholarship Award
    • 2021 TTU Study Abroad Competitive Scholarship
    • 2020-2021 TTU TA RA Spring Est. Scholarship
    • 2020-2021 TTU Prestigious Doctoral Ex TA award
    • Apr, 2020 Leadership And Mentorship Program (LAMP) Scholarship from the Dean of the Whitacre College of Engineering, Texas Tech University, TX, USA
    • 2019-2020 TTU GRAD Incentive Scholarhip
    • 2018-2019 TTU Whitacre College of Engineering Designated ENGR Scholarship
    • 2011-2015 Received 7 “Award of Excellence” awards throughout Undergraduate degree.
    • 2015 Received the most prestigious "Student of the Year" award for all academic years in Bachelor's.

Volunteering Activities / Public Appearances

    • 2019-2021 Secretary for Nepal Students' Association (NSA)- TTU under Students Governments Association.
    • 2019,2021 Volunteer for Arbor Day Plantation, TTU.
    • 2019-2020 Active member for the organization "Women's in Computer Science, TTU".
    • 2019-2020 Active member for "Society of Women's Engineers, TTU".
    • 2020 Judge for 19th Annual Graduate Student Research Poster Competition, TTU.
    • 2020 Organized training info session for undergraduate seniors to prepare them for job interviews, TTU.
    • 2019 "Worldwide showcase event TTU" participation and volunteering.
    • 2019 "TTU International Culture Fest" participation and volunteering.
    • 2015 Volunteering for the project “Water Caravan- Peace on the Move” organized by GUTHI in association with NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation and Nepal Red Cross Society.
    • 2015 Volunteer for the project “My role against domestic child labor” organized by CWISH.
    • 2014 First Position in Debate competition in interstate IT Fest SANGHARSH, India, on the topic "Technology Boon or Bane".
    • 2014 "Readathon” Literary Event: first position by speaking on the book “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne on Engineer’s day.
    • 2013 First position in Paper presentation on Engineers' day.

Trainings and Workshops

    • 2021 Certified DeepLearning.AI Tensorflow Developer, Coursera.
    • 2021 Certified for completing Graduate Research Strategies Initiative, Texas Tech Libraries.
    • August 2019 XSEDE HPC Workshop: Big Data, Hadoop, Spark and Tensorflow.
    • September 2019 XSEDE HPC Workshop: write scalable codes using MPI - the standard programming tool of scalable parallel computing.
    • November 2019 XSEDE HPC Workshop: OpenMP, working knowledge of how to write scalable codes using OpenMP.
    • Jan 2015 - May 2015 6 months industrial training in java and android from RCE (business partner of Alcanttor, Canada), Chandigarh
    • Jan 2015 - March 2015 4 months internship on PHP-CMS system from Logic ERP solutions, Mohali, India.

Last Updated on: 09/06/2021