Microarchitecture & security
Discovering how hidden processor behavior exposes information, and developing hardware defenses that learn from execution.
Computer architecture · Hardware security · AI
Samira Mirbagher Ajorpaz
Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Faculty Member, Computer Science
North Carolina State University
smirbag@ncsu.edu
I study how processors learn, perform, and leak information—and how to build computer systems that are faster, more efficient, and more secure.
Biography
I am an Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University, where I lead the BRAIN SPEC research lab. I am also a faculty member in Computer Science and am affiliated with NC State’s Secure Computing Institute.
My work brings together computer architecture, systems security, and machine learning. I investigate the mechanisms behind processor behavior and use those insights to design efficient hardware, uncover security weaknesses, and develop defenses.
I especially enjoy advising graduate and undergraduate students in research and helping them grow as independent researchers.
2020
University of California Postdoctoral Fellow
UC San Diego, Computer Science & Engineering
2019
Ph.D., Computer Science
Texas A&M University
2014
B.S., Computer Engineering
University of Isfahan
Selected awards & research support
- IEEE Micro Top Picks2026 · GateBleed
- SRC Research Award2025 · Semiconductor Research Corporation
- Chancellor’s Innovation Fund Award2024 · NC State · Prometheus
- MIT Rising Stars in EECS2021
- UC San Diego CSE Postdoctoral Fellowship2020 · CSE Fellows cohort
Research
Secure AI accelerators
Investigating the security consequences of performance optimizations in on-chip accelerators, including data-dependent timing, sparsity, and power gating.
AI for computer architecture
Developing compact learning mechanisms and tools that help architects explain hardware behavior and improve processor performance.
News & milestones
All news and service2026
- Fall 2026Welcome Amna Hassan to BRAIN SPEC as a Ph.D. student!
- Fall 2026I am pleased to be teaching Microarchitecture Reverse Engineering and Security this semester at NC State! In Fall 2026, students will investigate real processor behavior, reproduce side-channel attacks, and explore hardware defenses. Course overview · Fall 2026 course listing.
- August 2026Congratulations to Ashley Kurian on reaching the Ph.D. preliminary examination milestone at NC State! I am pleased to serve on Ashley’s committee and wish Ashley all the best with the next stage of the research.
- March 2026CacheMind has been accepted at ASPLOS 2026. Congratulations to Kaushal Mhapsekar, Azam Ghanbari, and Bita Aslrousta!
- February 2026FeatureBleed has been published in IEEE Computer Architecture Letters.
- 2026I am pleased to serve as Area Chair for HPCA 2027! 2026 review cycle.
- 2026I am pleased to serve as Finance Co-Chair for ISCA 2026! Organizing committee.
- 2026I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for ISCA 2026!
- 2026Congratulations to Dr. Faiz Alam on completing his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering at NC State! I am delighted to celebrate this achievement as a member of his dissertation committee. Wishing Faiz every success in the next chapter! Read his dissertation.
- 2026I’m happy to serve on John McFarland’s graduate advisory committee at NC State and support his Ph.D. research!
- 2026GateBleed has been selected as an IEEE Micro Top Pick from the 2025 computer architecture conferences. Top Picks publication · Full PDF bundle.
2025
- December 19, 2025Excited to collaborate with Arm on security research!
- October 2025GateBleed has earned three ACM artifact-evaluation badges at MICRO 2025: Artifacts Available, Artifacts Evaluated — Functional, and Results Reproduced. Congratulations to the team! Published paper with badges.
- July 2025GateBleed has been accepted at MICRO 2025.
- June 13, 2025I am excited to announce that I have founded Art³misia, Inc., an NC State research-based startup advancing Prometheus and related AI and computer-architecture technology toward commercialization.
- Summer 2025Welcome Bita Aslrousta to BRAIN SPEC as a Ph.D. student!
- Summer 2025Welcome Kaushal Mhapsekar to BRAIN SPEC as a Ph.D. student!
- April 2025Congratulations to Seaver Thorn on reaching the Ph.D. preliminary examination milestone at NC State! I am pleased to serve on Seaver’s committee and look forward to the research ahead.
- March 2025Congratulations to Jinyi (Steve) Qiu on passing the Ph.D. qualifying examination at NC State! I am pleased to serve on his CAS qualifying-review committee. Wishing Steve continued success in his doctoral research!
- 2025I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for USENIX Security 2025!
- 2025I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for ISCA 2025!
- 2025Congratulations to Digvijay Anand on completing his M.S. in Computer Engineering at NC State! I am pleased to celebrate this achievement as a member of his thesis committee. Wishing Digvijay all the best in the next chapter! Read his thesis, VAHANA.
2024
- October 17, 2024Delighted to share that our project has been selected for an SRC Research Award! As lead PI, I will work in collaboration with AMD and Intel on securing on-chip AI accelerators against emerging microarchitectural attacks, with research beginning in January 2025.
- Fall 2024Welcome Darsh Asher to BRAIN SPEC as a Ph.D. student!
- June 11, 2024I’m delighted that our Prometheus Tool for Computer System Security Analysis has won NC State’s Chancellor’s Innovation Fund (CIF) award! Prometheus is one of six projects selected for support this year. Award announcement.
2024 Chancellor’s Innovation FundNC State award announcementView full screenshot - May 22, 2024It is a pleasure to welcome patent examiners from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to the BRAIN SPEC Lab at NC State! My students and I are sharing our work through a lab tour and research presentations, and enjoying the discussion with the visiting team.
- February 2024Congratulations to Anirudh Seshadri on completing the Ph.D. preliminary examination at NC State! I am pleased to serve on his committee. Best wishes for the next stage of his doctoral research!
- 2024I am pleased to serve as Publication Chair for MICRO 2024! Organizing committee.
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P) 2024!
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for ASPLOS 2024!
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for MICRO 2024!
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for IEEE Micro Top Picks! 2024 review and selection cycle.
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for HPCA 2024!
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for ACM CCS 2024!
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for SEED 2024!
- 2024I am pleased to serve on the NC State ECE Department Head Search Advisory Committee!
- 2024Congratulations to Anshul Naithani on earning his M.S. in Computer Engineering at NC State! I am pleased to celebrate this milestone as a member of his thesis committee. Wishing Anshul every success in the next chapter! Read his thesis on ray tracing and prefetching.
2023
- Fall 2023Congratulations to Ferhat Yaman on graduating with his M.S. in ECE! I am delighted to celebrate this milestone as his thesis advisor and committee chair. Wishing Ferhat all the best in the next chapter! Read his thesis, AgentSCA: Advanced Physical Side Channel Analysis Agent with LLMs (thesis PDF).
- Summer 2023Welcome Joshua Kalyanapu to BRAIN SPEC as a Ph.D. student!
- 2023I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for MICRO 2023!
- 2023I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for HPCA 2023!
- 2023I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for ASPLOS 2023!
- 2023I am pleased to serve as Organizing Chair for ISPASS 2023!
- 2023I am pleased to serve as a judge for the NC State ECE GSA Research Symposium and support our graduate researchers! Spring 2023.
2022
- 2022I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for ASPLOS 2022!
- 2022I am pleased to serve as External Reviewer for ISCA 2022!
- 2022I am pleased to serve as Reviewer for ACM Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS)!
2021
- 2021I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for ASPLOS 2021!
- 2021I am pleased to serve on the Program Committee (PC) for HPCA 2021 Industry Track!
- 2021I am pleased to serve as Reviewer for ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization (TACO)!
2020
- 2020I’m delighted to have been awarded the UC San Diego CSE Postdoctoral Fellowship and to join the 2020 CSE Fellows cohort, with Dean Tullsen as my faculty mentor! UC San Diego’s January 2021 announcement.
Professional service news · Graduate committee news · Professional memberships
Selected publications
ASPLOS2026
CacheMind: From Miss Rates to Why—Natural-Language, Trace-Grounded Reasoning for Cache Replacement
Interactive reasoning over cache traces, with a benchmark for evaluating explanations of microarchitectural behavior.
IEEE CAL2026
FeatureBleed: Inferring Private Enriched Attributes From Sparsity-Optimized AI Accelerators
How sparsity optimizations can expose private features through the timing of AI inference.
IEEE MicroTop Picks · 2026
Top Picks from the 2025 computer architecture conferencesGateBleed: Exploiting On-Core Accelerator Power Gating for High Performance and Stealthy Attacks on AI
IEEE Micro Top Picks article, with the original MICRO paper and impact summary in one PDF bundle.
MICRO2025
Selected for IEEE Micro Top PicksGateBleed: Exploiting On-Core Accelerator Power Gating for High Performance and Stealthy Attacks on AI
A study of the security and privacy consequences of power gating in Intel AMX, and the tradeoffs involved in mitigation.
Three artifact-evaluation badges · MICRO 2025
GateBleed earned Artifacts Available; Artifacts Evaluated — Functional; Results Reproduced.
IEEE CAL2025
Thor: A Non-Speculative Value Dependent Timing Side Channel Attack Exploiting Intel AMX
Characterizing how operand values influence matrix-accelerator timing and create information leakage.
MICRO2022
EVAX: Towards a Practical, Pro-active & Adaptive Architecture for High Performance & Security
Adaptive hardware detection strengthened through the generation and study of evasive attacks.
MICRO2020
PerSpectron: Detecting Invariant Footprints of Microarchitectural Attacks with Perceptron
Using microarchitectural observations and compact hardware learning to detect attacks before information is leaked.
Teaching
My courses connect processor design, security, and machine learning through measurement and hands-on investigation. Students build experiments, question assumptions, and develop research ideas from the behavior of real systems.
Teaching resourcesECE 492/592 · Fall 2026
Microarchitecture Reverse Engineering and Security
Experimental methods for understanding processors, investigating side channels, and evaluating hardware security.
Undergraduate & graduate teaching
Foundations of Generative AI for Systems
Connecting generative AI with systems questions, experimental evaluation, and computer architecture research.
BRAIN SPEC Lab
From course projects to research
I mentor graduate and undergraduate researchers in hardware security and computer architecture. Our work brings together careful measurement, causal explanations, and reproducible artifacts.
Meet the research groupContact
For research collaborations, academic inquiries,
and prospective student interests.
smirbag@ncsu.edu
890 Oval Drive
Raleigh, NC 27606
Electrical & Computer Engineering · Computer Science
North Carolina State University
890 Oval Drive
Raleigh, NC 27606
Office phone: 919-515-4088
Campus mail: Box 7911