Rate My Professor Yan Sun

Professor Yan Sun is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, a position she has held since joining the faculty in 2004. She earned her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2004, an M.S. from the same institution in 2003, and a B.S. in Electronics from Peking University, Beijing, China in 1998. As the Founding Director of the Center for Cyber-Physical Intelligence and Security (CYPHER) at URI, she has significantly advanced research in cybersecurity. Sun has served on Congressman Langevin’s Cybersecurity Advisory Board and holds community roles including school committee member for East Greenwich and member of the Wakefield Rotary Club.

Her research focuses on cyber-physical systems security, power grid security, network security, trustworthy social computing, and trust modeling and management. She has authored numerous influential publications, including the award-winning paper “Distributed Finite-Time Economic Dispatch for Islanded Microgrids” at the 2020 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting, “Hybrid wireless sensor networks: a reliability, cost and energy-aware approach” recognized with the 2018 Premium Award for Best Paper in IET Wireless Sensor Systems, and “The Sequential Attack against Power Grid Networks” which received the Best Paper Award at IEEE ICC 2014. Other notable works include contributions to IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security and IEEE Sensors Journal. Sun has secured major grants from the Office of Naval Research, including a 2024 award for "Advancing Research on Cyber-Physical Security and Resilience: A Multifaceted Approach." Her accolades include IEEE Fellow status in 2019 for contributions to trust modeling and statistical signal processing for cyber-physical security, the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2007, the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Maryland ECE Department, the 2022 Outstanding Faculty Research Award from URI College of Engineering, and multiple best paper awards. Additionally, she holds U.S. Patent 10,639,494 for Time-Varying Magnetic Field Therapy Using Multistable Latching Mechanisms.