Boulat Bash
- Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Member of the Graduate Faculty
- Associate Professor, Optical Sciences
- Associate Professor, Applied Mathematics - GIDP
Biography
Boulat Bash is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, joining the university after working at Raytheon BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for three and a half years. He earned an undergraduate degree in economics at Dartmouth College, and his MS and PhD degrees in computer science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bash’s research is focused on covert communications, which involves not only protecting the content of communications from adversaries, but keeping adversaries from detecting that communication is happening at all. He is keenly interested in quantum-secure signaling schemes that offer protection against the adversaries that are only limited by the laws of physics. Bash has authored or co-authored 31 journal papers, conference articles, and technical reports, and has one patent. Degrees
Teaching InterestsWireless network security, information theory, communications Research InterestsApplying quantum and classical information theory to practical problems of reliability and security; developing fundamental limits for communicating and sensing with signals that are mathematically secure, and pushing towards these limits by engineering experimental and prototype radio and optical systems; employing information-theoretic approaches to securing biomechanical and very large distributed computing systems |
Degrees
- Ph.D. Computer Science
- University of Massachusetts, Amhest, Massachusetts, United States
- Fundamental Limits of Covert Communications
- M.S. Computer Science
- University of Massachusetts, Amhest, Massachusetts, United States
- B.A. Economics
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States
Work Experience
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona (2018 - Ongoing)
- Raytheon BBN Technologies (2015 - 2018)
- University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts (2005 - 2015)
- Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts (2004 - 2005)
- Goldman Sachs & Co. (2000 - 2002)
Awards
- Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award
- NSF, Spring 2020
- Excellence in Engineering and Technology Award
- Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, Winter 2017
- Honorable Mention, NSA Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition
- National Security Agency, Fall 2016
Interests
Research
Applying quantum and classical information theory to practical problems of reliability and security; developing fundamental limits for communicating and sensing with signals that are mathematically secure, and pushing towards these limits by engineering experimental and prototype radio and optical systems; employing information-theoretic approaches to securing biomechanical and very large distributed computing systems
Teaching
Wireless network security, information theory, communications
Courses
No activities entered.
Scholarly Contributions
Journals/Publications
- More infoIn the diffraction-limited near-field propagation regime, free-space optical quantum key distribution (QKD) systems can employ multiple spatial modes to improve their key rate. This improvement can be effected by means of high-dimensional QKD or by spatial-mode multiplexing of independent QKD channels, with the latter, in general, offering higher key rates. Here, we theoretically analyze spatial-mode-multiplexed, decoy-state BB84 whose transmitter mode set is either a collection of phase-tilted, flat-top focused beams (FBs) or the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes. Although for vacuum propagation the FBs suffer a QKD rate penalty relative to the LG modes, their potential ease of implementation make them an attractive alternative. Moreover, in the presence of turbulence, the FB modes may outperform the LG modes.
