cs 

Dr. Lina Pu has been hired in the computer science department

By Arayna Wooley

The College of Engineering welcomed Dr. Lina Pu, assistant professor in computer science, to The University of Alabama this year.

After gaining her doctorate in 2015, Pu has delved into three areas of research: sustainable IoT, security in sustainable IoT, and underwater mobile networks. Internet of Things, or IoT, is the interconnection of physical objects through the internet, and it is being expanded to the underwater world.

“IoT involves a larger number of sensors, actuators, and other lower power devices. IoT provides a promising blueprint; however, it faces many research challenges in energy sustainability and system security,” Pu said.

Since 2010, Pu has been working on underwater networking. It is known that Earth is a water planet, she said, and she imagines a future where the oceans are also connected to the internet. In this scenario, underwater sensors could be used as eyes to explore the underwater world.

“One typical application of an underwater mobile network is underwater robots looking for shipwreck. This application will involve acoustic networks for long range, time sensitive command message transmissions and visible light communication for image and video delivery,” Pu said.

Prior to joining UA, Pu worked as an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. She is looking forward to working with faculty in different academic departments and research centers at UA.

“UA has very strong research institutes. My research can form multidisciplinary collaboration with faculty in the CS department and across the University. The sustainable and secure IoT project that I am working on can well connect to the research projects in the Alabama Cyber Institute. The underwater related research can well connect to the [Alabama] Water Institute,” Pu said.

She has published 35 papers in prestigious journals and international conferences. Pu received the Best Paper Award at the International Federation for Information Processing Networking 2013 Conference. She also serves as a technical reviewer for dozens of journals and international conferences.

Pu has active funding supported by the National Science Foundation. The title of the project is “Fundamental Research on Energy Efficiency and Security of RF Energy Harvesting Wireless Networks.”

In the future, she’d like to use her research to build sustainable and secure IoT systems for humans and pets.

In 1837, The University of Alabama became one of the first five universities in the nation to offer engineering classes. Today, UA’s College of Engineering has more than 5,200 students and more than 170 faculty. In recent years, students in the College have been named USA Today All-USA College Academic Team members, Goldwater, Hollings, Portz, Boren, Mitchell and Truman scholars.


Author: Arayna Wooley    /    Posted on: January 7, 2021    /    Posted in:   Computer Science, Faculty and Staff