Ebuka Philip Oguchi - Assistant Professor

About Me

Brief Bio

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Spelman College. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, School of Computing, advised by Prof. Nirnimesh Ghose (2025). My academic journey spans three continents: I earned an M.S. in Computer Applied Technology from Changchun University of Science and Technology (China) and a B.Eng. in Electronic and Computer Engineering from Nnamdi Azikiwe University (Nigeria).

Research Interests

My research focuses on securing the critical infrastructure of emerging wireless networks. I specialize in message integrity and authentication across diverse environments, including:

Agricultural IoT (Underground sensor networks)
Autonomous Vehicles (V2X security)
Molecular Communication (Nano-scale security)
Computer Science Education (Broadening Participation in Computing)

I integrate physical-layer security, wireless channel modeling, and machine-learning-based verification with security protocols to design robust authentication and trust-establishment mechanisms for resource-constrained systems across diverse environments.

Assistant Professor
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Spelman College
ebukaoguchi@spelman.edu
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⚡ Latest News

Jan 2026: Joined Spelman College as a tenure-track Assistant Professor (CIS).
Aug 2025: Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Nebraska–Lincoln; Recipient, Outstanding Dissertation Award (School of Computing).
PDF Slides
Feb 2025: Submitted paper to IEEE TWC.
Jan 2025: Submitted paper to IEEE TMBMC.
July 2023: Mary E. and Elmer H. Dohrmann Fellowship (University of Nebraska–Lincoln).

Publications

"Authentication and Message Integrity Verification for Emerging Wireless Networks" (Ph.D. Dissertation), University of Nebraska-Lincoln, August 2025.
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"STUN: Secret-Free Trust-Establishment for Underground Wireless Networks," in Proc. of IEEE INFOCOM Wrkshp on Wireless-Sec: 5G & Beyond Wireless Security, Virtual Event, May 2022.
PDF PPT
"VET: Autonomous Vehicular Credential Verification using Trajectory and Motion Vectors," in Proc. of EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (EAI SecureComm 2023), Hong Kong, October 2023.
PDF PPT
"Soil Assisted Trust-Establishment For Underground Internet-of-Things," under review to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, February 2025.
"Systematization of Knowledge for Security in Molecular and Nano-communications," under review to IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications, January 2025.
Poster: "STUN: Secret-Free Trust-Establishment for Underground Wireless Networks," Nebraska Research Days, March 2023.
View Poster
Master's Thesis: "Smoke Recognition Algorithm Based on ResNet and GoogleNet Networks," Changchun University of Science and Technology, 2020.
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Research Projects

Agricultural IoT Security

Goal: Establishing trust in underground sensor networks where physical access is difficult.
Method: I integrate physical layer channel features with lightweight cryptographic primitives to ensure data integrity without draining sensor batteries.
Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Autonomous Vehicle Security

Goal: Preventing adversarial takeover of autonomous systems (self-driving cars/drones).
Method: We utilize real-time trajectory and motion vector data to verify that incoming messages match the physical behavior of the vehicle, detecting spoofing attacks instantly.
Supported by the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research (NCESR).

Radio Frequency Fingerprinting (On-going)

Goal: Identifying devices based on their unique hardware imperfections.
Method: Using Deep Learning to analyze signal characteristics in underground environments, creating unique "fingerprints" for authentication.
Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Molecular Communication Security (On-going)

Goal: Securing nano-scale communication in biological environments (e.g., inside the human body).
Method: Investigating lightweight protocols to prevent bootstrapping attacks between nanodevices where traditional cryptography is too heavy.
Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Experience

Teaching

Teaching Assistant: Cryptography & Security (CSCE 477/877) - Fall 2022
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Facilitated lab sessions and graded assignments on Block Ciphers, RSA, and Hash Functions. Assisted students with implementing cryptographic primitives and analyzing network security protocols.
Download Syllabus Course Schedule

Industry

Internship: Electronic Development Institute, Awka (2015)

Designed and prototyped a remote control system for home appliances using infrared sensor technology.

Mentorship & Affiliations

Programs:
• Recipient, Google CS Research Mentorship Program (CSRMP)
• Member, Institute for African American Mentoring in Computing Sciences (iAAMCS)
Mentees (Research Guidance):
• Mr. Hakim Lado (Ph.D. student)
• Ms. Arielle Monson (Undergraduate)

Awards and Honors

Ph.D. Dissertation Award (2025) - School of Computing, UNL
Mary E. and Elmer H. Dohrmann Fellowship (2023) - UNL (1 of 6 recipients)
Chinese Government Scholarship (2018) - Changchun University (1 of 500 global recipients)
Microsoft Azure ML Scholar (Sept 2020)

Professional Service

Conference Reviewer: EAI SecureComm (2024), ACM WiSec (2024)
Journal Reviewer: IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (2024), ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems (2025), IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (2025)
Judge: UNL College of Engineering Poster Fair (2024)

Certifications & Summer Schools

Cybersecurity Incident Response Handler (U.S. Army, 2025) View
Cybersecurity Operational Training Experience (U.S. Army, 2025) View
Machine Learning Summer School (Oxford, 2022) View
Machine Learning Summer School (Indonesia, 2020) View
AWS Machine Learning Foundations (Udacity, 2020) View

Resources

Technical Tutorials

Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) LabVIEW Tutorials:
Practical guides I created for working with software-defined radio.
Part 1 (Setup) Part 2 (Tx/Rx) Part 3 (Advanced)