Rachad Atat
Assistant Professor
Rachad Atat received a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas, KS, USA, in 2017, an MS in Electrical Engineering from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in 2012, and a BE in Computer Engineering from LAU in 2010. He held the position of Postdoctoral Research Associate and Assistant Research Scientist at Texas A&M University in Qatar in 2018 and 2022. He is currently an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Mathematics department at LAU. He authored 23 peer-reviewed journal articles and 33 conference papers in top venues, amassing over 1,000 citations. At least nine of his papers are among the most highly cited for their respective years of publication. He is an AWS Certified Solutions architect associate, and earned a professional certificate in Google Advanced Data Analytics. He is an investigator in grants on applications of AI in cybersecurity and networking, and currently leading a research team of PhD students with national and international collaborations.
Honors and Awards
- Jan 2024
4th International Conference on Smart Grid and Renewable Energy (SGRE) Best Paper Award; Paper title: “Forecasting EV Charging Demand: A Graph Convolutional Neural Network-Based Approach.” - April 2023
IEEE Senior Membership Grade. - January 2019
Texas A&M University at Qatar Research Excellence Travel Award. - November 2016
Global Communications Conference Best Paper Award; Paper title: Improving Spectral Efficiency of D2D Cellular Networks through RF Energy Harvesting. - October 2016
NSF Travel Grant Award. - January 2014
The University of Kansas Engineering Fellowship Award. - February 2010-Present
Member of the Order of Engineers, Beirut, Lebanon. - February 2010
Student Honor Society member at Lebanese American University. - September 2008
Discovery Scholarship Recipient Award from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Selected Publications
Published Journals
- Islam, M.A., Atat,R., Ismail, M., “Software-Defined Networking Based Resilient Proactive Routing in Smart Grids Using Graph Neural Networks and Deep Q-Networks”, in IEEE Access, doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3438938.
- Fahim, S.R., Atat,R., Ke¸ceci, C., Takiddin, A., Ismail, M., Davis, K.R., and Serpedin, E., “ Graph Autoencoder-Based Power Attacks Detection for Resilient Electrified Transportation Systems”, in IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, doi: 10.1109/TTE.2024.3355094.
- Atat,R., Ismail, M., and Serpedin, E., “Joint Cascade Vulnerability Assessment of Interdependent Power-Water Infrastructures under Cyber-Physical Attacks”, in IEEE Systems, doi: 10.1109/JSYST.2023.3314099.
- Atat,R., Shaaban, M.F., Ismail, M., Serpedin, E., “Efficient UAV Paths Design for Post-Disaster Damage Assessment of Overhead Transmission Lines”, IET Smart Grid, 1 19 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1049/stg2.12120.
- Takiddin, A., Atat,R., Ismail, M., Boyaci, O., Davis, K., Serpedin, E., “Generalized Graph Neural Network-Based Detection of False Data Injection Attacks in Smart Grids”, IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence, 2023, doi: 10.1109/TETCI.2022.3232821.
- Takiddin, A., Ismail, M., Atat,R., Davis, K. R., and Serpedin, E., “Robust Graph Autoencoder-based Detection of False Data Injection Attacks Against Data Poisoning in Smart Grids”, IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, doi: 10.1109/TAI.2023.3286831.
- Jamshed, M. A., Ismail, M., Pervaiz, H., Atat, R., Bayram, I.S., and Ni, Q., “Reinforcement Learning-based Allocation of Fog Nodes for Cloud-based Smart Grid”, e-Prime - Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy, 2023, 100144, ISSN 2772-6711.
- Islam, M. A., Ismail, M., Atat, R., Boyaci, O., and Shannigrahi, S., “Software-Defined Network-Based Proactive Routing Strategy in Smart Power Grids Using Graph Neural Network and Reinforcement Learning”, Elsevier’s e-Prime - Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy, 2023, 100187, ISSN 2772-6711.
- Atat,R., Ismail, M., Serpedin, E., “Limiting the Failure Impact of Interdependent Power-Communication Networks via Optimal Partitioning”, in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TSG.2022.3188648.
- Atat,R., Ismail, M., Refaat, S. S., Serpedin, E., “Cascading Failure Vulnerability Analysis in Interdependent Power-Communication Networks”, IEEE Systems Journal, 2021, doi: 10.1109/JSYST.2021.3128698.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., Serpedin, E., and Overbye, T., “Dynamic Joint Allocation of EV Charging Stations and DGs in Spatio-Temporal Expanding Grids”, in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 7280-7294, 2020.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., Shaaban, M. F., Serpedin, E., and Overbye, T., “Stochastic Geometry-Based Model for Dynamic Allocation of Metering Equipment in Spatio-Temporal Expanding Power Grids”, in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 2080-2091, May 2020.
- Atat, R., Liu, L., Wu, J., Ashdown, J., and Yi, Y. “Green Massive Traffic Offloading for Cyber-Physical Systems over Heterogeneous Cellular Networks”, Mobile Networks and Applications Springer Journal, vol. 24, no. 4, pp.1364-1372, Aug. 2019.
- Atat, R., Liu, L., Wu, J., Li, G., Ye, C., and Yi, Y. “Big Data Meet Cyber-Physical Systems: A Panoramic Survey”, IEEE Access, vol. 6, pp. 73603-73636, 2018.
- Wu,S. Atat, R., Mastronarde,N. and Liu,L., “Improving the Coverage and Spectral Efficiency of Millimeter-Wave Cellular Networks using Device-to-Device Relays”, in IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 66, no. 5, pp. 2251-2265, May 2018.
- Atat, R., Liu,L., Ashdown, J., Medley, M., Matyjas, J., and Yi,Y. “A Physical Layer Security Scheme for Mobile Health Cyber-Physical Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Internet of Things, vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 295-309, Feb. 2018.
- Hamedani, K., Liu, L., Atat, R., Wu, J., and Yi, Y. “Reservoir Computing Meets Smart Grids: Attack Detection using Delayed Feedback Networks”, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 734-743, Feb. 2018.
- Li, J.; Liu, L.; Zhao, C.; Hamedani, K.; Atat, R., and Yi, Y. “Enabling Sustainable Cyber Physical Security Systems Through Neuromorphic Computing”, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 112-125, June 2017.
- Atat, R., Liu,L., Chen, H., Wu, J., Li, H., and Yi,Y. “Enabling Cyber-Physical Communication in 5G Cellular Networks: Challenges, Spatial Spectrum Sensing, and Cyber-Security”, IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory & Applications, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 49-54, 4 2017.
- Atat, R., Liu,L., Mastronarde,N. and Yi,Y. “Energy Harvesting-Based D2D-Assisted Machine-Type Communications”, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 65, No.3, March 2017.
- Yaacoub,E., Atat, R., Al-Sharora,A., Alouini,M. “Mobile relays for enhanced broadband connectivity in high speed train systems”,Elsevier Physical Communication Journal. Vol. 12, pp.105-115, September 2014.
- Atat, R., Yaacoub,E., Alouini,M., Filali,F., and Abu-Dayya,A. “Delay-Sensitive Content Distribution via Peer-to-Peer Collaboration in Public Safety Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks”, Ad Hoc Networks Journal (Elsevier), vol. 16, pp.182-196, May 2014.
- Atat, R., Yaacoub,E., Alouini,M. and Abu-Dayya,A. “Cooperative Ad Hoc Networks for Energy and Delay Efficient Content Distribution with Fast Channel Variations”, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (WCMC) Journal. Vol. 12, No.18, December 2012.
Conference Papers
- Joad, F., Atat, R., Mbayed, H., and Takiddin, A., “Recurrent Graph Neural Network-Based Identification of Replay Attacks in Power Networks”, The 4th International Conference on Electrical, Computer, Communications and Mechatronics Engineering (ICECCME2024), Nov. 2024, Male, Maldives (accepted).
- Mughal, U., Atat, R., and Ismail, M., “Graph Neural Network-Based Intrusion Detection System for a Swarm of UAVs”, MILCOM 2024, Oct. 2024, Washington, DC, USA, (accepted).
- Fahim, S.R., Atat, R., Ke¸ceci, C., Takiddin, A., Ismail, M., Davis, K.R., and Serpedin, E., “Cyberattack Aware Load Frequency Control in Power Systems”, 57th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Oct. 2024, Pacific Grove, CA, USA (accepted).
- Fahim, S.R., Atat, R., Ke¸ceci, C., Takiddin, A., Ismail, M., Davis, K.R., and Serpedin, E., “Generalized FDIA Detection in Power Dependent Electrified Transportation Systems”, EUSIPCO 2024, Aug. 2024, Lyon, France (accepted).
- Takiddin A., Ismail M., Atat, R., and Serpedin, E., “Resilience of Data-Driven Cyberattack Detection Systems in Smart Power Grids”, EUSIPCO 2024, Aug. 2024, Lyon, France (accepted).
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., and Serpedin, E., “Graphon-Based Synthetic Power System Model and Its Application in System Risk Analysis”, 9th IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2-2023), Bucharest, Romania, Sept. 2023.
- Fahim, S.R., Atat, R., Ke¸ceci, C., Takiddin, A., Ismail, M., Davis, K.R., and Serpedin, E., “Forecasting EV Charging Demand: A Graph Convolutional Neural Network-Based Approach”, 2024 4th International Conference on Smart Grid and Renewable Energy (SGRE), Jan. 2024, Doha, Qatar (BEST PAPER AWARD).
- Sweeten, J., Takiddin, A., Ismail, M., Refaat, S.S., and Atat, R., “Cyber-Physical GNN-Based Intrusion Detection in Smart Power Grids”, 2023 IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (SmartGridComm), Nov. 2023, Glasgow, Scotland.
- Takiddin, A., Ismail, M., Atat,R., Davis, K.R., and Serpedin, E., “Graph Autoencoder-Based Detection of Unseen False Data Injection Attacks in Smart Grids”, Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys) 2023, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 2023.
- Takiddin, A., Atat, R., Ismail, M., Davis, K.R., and Serpedin, E., “A Graph Neural Network Multi-Task Learning-Based Approach for Detection and Localization of Cyberattacks in Smart Grids”, 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2023), Rhodes Island Greece, June 2023.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., and Serpedin, E., “Cascading Failures Mitigation Strategy for Resilient Water Infrastructures”, 22nd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Yokohama, Japan, July 2023.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., Davis, K., and Serpedin, E., “Large-Scale Cascading Failure Mitigation in Power Systems via Typed-Graphlets Partitioning”, 2023 North American Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference, Washington, D.C., Jan. 2023, pp. 1-5.
- Islam, M.A., Ismail, M., Boyaci, O., Atat,R., and Shannigrahi, S., “Graph Neural Network Based Prediction of Data Traffic in Cyber-Physical Smart Power Grids”, IEEE SmartGridComm’22, Singapore, Oct. 2022, pp. 1-6.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., Serpedin, E., “Attack Strategies Comparison Based on the Most Critical Nodes in Interdependent Power-Communication Networks”, SGRE-2022 - 3rd International Conference on Smart Grid and Renewable Energy, Doha, Qatar, 2022, pp. 1-6.
- Islam, M.A., Ismail, M., Atat,R., Shannigrahi, S., “A Software-Defined Routing Strategy Based on Reinforcement Learning in Smart Power Grid”, SoutheastCon22, Mobile, Alabama, USA, 2022, pp. 1-6.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., Refaat, S. S., Serpedin, E., “On the Impact of Control Center Allocation on Power-Communication Network Vulnerability”, IEEE ISGT Europe 2021, Espoo, Finland, 2021, pp. 1-6.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., Refaat, S., and Serpedin, E., “Stochastic Geometry Model for Interdependent Cyber-Physical Communication-Power Networks”, ICC 2020 - 2020 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Dublin, Ireland, 2020, pp. 1-6.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M., and Serpedin, E., “Stochastic Geometry Planning of Electric Vehicles Charging Stations”, ICASSP 2020 - 2020 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Barcelona, Spain, 2020, pp. 3062-3066.
- Atat, R., Ismail, M. and Serpedin, E., “Stochastic Geometry-based Model for Spatio-temporal Expanding Smart Grids”, 2019 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT Asia), Chengdu, China, 2019, pp. 457-462.
- Atat, R., Shafin, R. and Serpedin, E., “Toward Solar Energy Harvesting for Small Cell Networks: Technology, Feasibility, and Challenges”, 2019 5th Experiment International Conference (exp.at’19), Funchal, Portugal, 2019, pp. 90-95.
- Atat, R., et al. “Cognitive Relay Networks with Energy and Mutual-Information Accumulation”, IEEE International Workshop on Wireless Communications and Networking in Extreme Environments, Honolulu, HI, USA, Apr. 2018.
- Wu,S., Atat, R., Mastronarde,N., and Liu,L. “Coverage Analysis of D2D Relay-Assisted Millimeter-Wave Cellular Networks”, 2017 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference WCNC, San Fransisco, CA USA, March 2017.
- Atat, R., Liu,L. and Yi,Y., “Privacy Protection Scheme for eHealth Systems: A Stochastic Geometry Approach”, 2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM16), Washington, DC USA, Dec. 2016.
- Atat, R., Liu, L., Ashdown, J., Medley, M., Matyjas, J., and Yi, Y., “Improving Spectral Efficiency of D2D Cellular Networks Through RF Energy Harvesting”, 2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM16), Washington, DC USA, Dec. 2016. (BEST PAPER AWARD).
- Atat, R., Liu, L., Ashdown, J., Medley, M., and Matyjas, J., “On the Performance of Relay-Assisted D2D Networks under Spatially Correlated Interference”, 2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM16), Washington, DC USA, Dec. 2016.
- Atat, R., Chen, H. and Liu, L., Ashdown, J., Medley, M., and Matyjas, J., “Fundamentals of Spatial RF Energy Harvesting for D2D Cellular Networks”, 2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM16), Washington, DC USA, Dec. 2016.
- Atat, R. and Liu,L., “On the Achievable Transmission Capacity of Secrecy-Based D2D Cellular Networks”, 2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM16), Washington, DC USA, Dec. 2016.
- Chen, H., Shafin,R., Atat, R., Yi,Y., and Liu,L., “Performance Analysis on Nano-Networks: A Stochastic Geometry Approach”, Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication, NANOCOM 2016, New York, NY, USA, September 28-30, 2016.
- Atat, R., Yaacoub,E., Alouini,M. and Filali,F. “Delay efficient cooperation in public safety vehicular networks using LTE and IEEE 802.11p”, 9th Annual IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC) - Special session Information dissemination in vehicular networks, pp.316-320, Las Vegas, USA, January 2012.
- Atat, R., Shakir,M. and Alouini,M. “On the interference rejection capabilities of triangular antenna array for cellular base stations”, 16th IEEE Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON 2012), pp.39-42, Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia, March 2012.
- Atat, R., Yaacoub,E., Alouini,M. and Abu-Dayya,A. “Cooperative relay-based multicasting for energy and delay minimization”, 8th International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2012), pp.808-813, Limassol, Cyprus, August 2012.
- Shakir,M., Atat, R., and Alouini,M. “On the Interference Suppression Capabilities of Cognitive Enabled Femto Cellular Networks”, The Second International Conference on Communications and Information Technology (ICCIT 2012), pp.402-407, Hammamet, Tunisia, June 2012.
- Atat, R., Yaacoub,E., Alouini,M. and Abu-Dayya,A. “Heterogeneous LTE/802.11a Mobile Relays for Data Rate Enhancement and Energy-Efficiency in High Speed Trains”, GLOBECOM 2012 Workshop - The 7th International Workshop on Heterogeneous, Multi-hop, Wireless and Mobile Networks (HeterWMN 2012), Anaheim, California, December 2012.
PhD Dissertation
- Enabling Cyber-Physical Communication in 5G Cellular Networks: Challenges, Solutions and Applications (ittc.ku.edu/research/thesis/documents/rachad_atat_thesis.pdf)
Book Chapters
- Atat, R., and Ismail, M. (2019). ”MultiRAT D2D Communication Paradigms: Potential Benefits and Challenging Issues”, in Wiley 5G Ref, pp.1-19.
- Shakir, M., Atat, R., and Alouini,M. (2013) ”Interference Suppression Capabilities of Smart Cognitive-Femto Networks (SCFN)”, in Al-Dulaimi, A., Cosmas, J., and Mohammed, A. (Eds), in Self-Organization and Green Applications in Cognitive Radio Networks, IGI Global. (The book has been awarded Best Paper in the New Applications of Cognitive Principles to Communications category for the WUN CogCom Best Paper Awards 2013).
- Atat, R., Yaacoub, E., Alouini, M.-S., and Abu-Dayya,A. (2013), ”Cooperative Peer-to-Peer Content Sharing Techniques for Energy Efficiency in Wireless Networks with Fast Channel Variations”, published in Green Networkings and Communications: ICT for Sustainability, Auerbach Publications, Taylor & Francis Group, USA.
Academic Degrees
- PhD with Honors in Electrical Engineering, University of Kansas, 2017.
- MS in Electrical Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, 2012.
- BE in Computer Engineering with Distinction, Lebanese American University, 2010.