Biography
Niki Pissinou is a Professor of Computer Science in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University. She is also the Founding Director of FIU’s Telecommunications and Information Technology Institute (IT²) and previously served as an Eminent Scholar from 2014 to 2017, and a tenured professor in FIU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2000 to 2010.
Pissinou’s research explores secure, efficient, and trustworthy computing systems, with contributions to temporal databases, wireless middleware, sensor-network security, game-theoretic cybersecurity, and privacy in wireless and mobile systems. Her recent projects include small language models for edge and IoT environments, AI-enabled tools and intelligent systems, and the integration of machine learning into resource-constrained platforms. She has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, including books and edited conference volumes. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Transportation, state agencies, and industry partners.
Pissinou was also a tenured professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she founded three research laboratories and helped establish one of NASA’s early Regional Application Centers. She later moved to FIU’s School of Computing and Information Sciences in 2010 and secured approval for IT² as a State University System Type II research institute, helping attract recurring funding that strengthened FIU’s research capacity.
Pissinou has an extensive track record of guiding faculty, undergraduate researchers, educators, and doctoral students through structured research-training programs. She has mentored more than 100 undergraduate researchers, more than 80 K–12 educators, and 32 doctoral graduates, many of whom now work in major technology companies, federal laboratories, and academic institutions.
She has organized major national and international conferences sponsored by ACM and IEEE and co-founded several influential professional forums, including the ACM Workshop on Geographic Information Systems (now ACM SIGSPATIAL). She has served on more than 300 program committees, advisory boards, and review panels. She has held editorial roles for multiple journals, including IEEE Transactions on Data and Knowledge Engineering, and has also served as an Associate Editor for the Tools with Artificial Intelligence journal. Her contributions have been recognized with best paper awards and school-level honors in research, mentoring, and teaching.
Pissinou holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, an MS in Computer Science from the University of California–Riverside, and a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University.
Education
- Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Southern California
- MSc, Computer Science, University of California, Riverside
- BSISE, Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University