Junior Professor Chair Dr.-Ing. Maria Méndez Real

Personal Info

UNIVERSITE BRETAGNE SUD
Lab-STICC - CNRS UMR 6285 - SHAKER research team

mail: maria.mendez-real@univ-ubs.fr

Address
Université Bretagne Sud
Laboratoire Lab-STICC - CNRS UMR 6285
Centre de Recherche- CS7030
F-56321 Lorient Cedex- FRANCE

Short bio

Originally from Mexico, Maria Méndez Real spent one year in the United States and lives in France since 2009.
Since September 2024, Maria Méndez Real holds the Junior Professor Chair on Swarm of Autonomous and Trusted Maritime Drones at UBS (Université de Bretagne-Sud), within Lab-STICC (Laboratoire des Sciences et Technologies de l’Information, de la Communication et de la Connaissance, UMR CNRS 6285) in France.
Maria has been working in Hardware Security since 2014. Her reasearch interests include side-channel attacks, fault and remote attacks, embedded systems, and machine learning implementation security.
Maria is scientific leader and coordinator of CoPhyTEE ANR JCJC Project.

From 2018 to 2024, she has been Associate Professor (Maitre de Conférences) at Polytech Nantes Université, France. Before, she was an Assistant Professor (ATER) from 2017 to 2018.
She received her PhD, european label, in Electronic Engineering - Hardware Security from UBS, within Lab-STICC CNRS UMR 6285 lab in France. Her PhD work was on the frame of the French ANR TSUNAMY project (2013-2017) and deal with secure-enable mechanisms for the physical isolation of sensitive applications on many-core architectures.
In 2015 Maria was invited researcher at the Ruhr-University of Bochum (RUB), Germany. She worked on virtual prototyping tools for evaluating multi core architectures security.
Before that, she received her master (Dipl.-Ing.) in Electrical and Computer from UBS in 2014.

Maria Méndez Real is author and co-author in international journals, conferences and workshops (TECS, TC, HOST, DATE, JSA, FPL, SAMOS, VLSI, etc). She is PC member and reviwer of several international journals and conferences (VLSI, JCEN, DATE, NEWCAS, FPT, TCAD, LASCAS, MCSoC, ICCS), and she is PC member of TCHES 2023, 2024, top venue in her field.
She actively participates on national project evaluation (ANR projects, PEC, regional, etc) and jurys for recrutement of Associate Professors and PhD following and defense jurys.

List of Publications

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=fr&user=5GDDjKkAAAAJ

Recent Publications (since 2025)

Journals

DynHaMo: Dynamic Hardware-based Monitoring dedicated to Attacks Detection, J. Pottier, M. Méndez Real, B. Granado, S. Pillement, ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS), 2025.
Do Not Trust Power Management: Challenges and Hints for Securing Future Trusted Execution Environments, G. Le-Gonidec, G. Bouffard, J-P. Prévotet, M. Méndez Real, ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS), 2025.

Conferences

A Lightweight Embedded Detection System against Voltage Drop Fault Attacks in Multi-Tenant FPGAs, Gwenn Le Gonidec, Guillaume Bouffard, Jean-Christophe Prévotet and M. Méndez Real, Constructive Approaches for SeCurity Analysis and Design of Embedded systems (CASCADE), 2026. Open source code available at: https://sourcesup.renater.fr/projects/detectionva/
Double Strike: Breaking Approximation-based Side-Channel Countermeasures for DNNs, L. Casalino, M. Méndez Real, JC. Prévotet, R. Salvador, IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), 2026.
UAVLnQ: An Architecture for Security Analysis of Cyber-Physical Network Behavior in UAVSwarms, A. Yousef, C. Tsai, N. N. Mistry, M. Méndez Real, and G. Gogniat, Workshop on Design and Architectures for Signal and Image Processing (DASIP), 2026. Open source code available at: https://github.com/Wh02m1/UAVLnQ
DynHaMo: Dynamic Hardware-based Monitoring dedicated to Attacks Detection, J. Pottier, M. Méndez Real, B. Granado, S. Pillement, Conference on Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis (CODES+ISSS), 2025.
Comb frequency division multiplexing: A non-binary modulation for airgap covert channel transmission, BAHI, Mohamed Alla Eddine, REAL, Maria MENDEZ, et PELCAT, Maxime. In : 2025 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference (DATE). IEEE, 2025. p. 1-2.
AudioGap: An AirGapped Covert Channel Exploiting the Frequency Diversity of Audio IC Electromagnetic Leakage, M. A. E. BAHI, M. MENDEZ REAL, E. NOGUES and M. PELCAT, 2025 IEEE 49th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC), Toronto, ON, Canada, 2025, pp. 989-994, doi: 10.1109/COMPSAC65507.2025.00128.
Clock-to-Clock Modulation Covert Channel, M. A. E. Bahi, M. Méndez Real, E. Nogues & M. Pelcat (2025, September). In IEEE 2025 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC Europe) (pp. 869-874).

Research Projects & Fundings

Chair on Swarm of Autonomous and Trusted Maritime Drones (Chair Leader)
2024-2028
Funding: ANR
CoPhyTEE: Addressing Covert & Physical Attacks performed from SW in Open-Hardware Trusted Execution Environment-enabled System-on-Chip (Laureate, Coordinator)
2023-2027
Funding: ANR JCJC - Jeunes Chercheuses et Jeunes Chercheurs (252KE)
SecDRONE (Scientific leader): Embedded Detection of Deviant Drone Behavior
2024-2027
Funding: DGA through PEC (Pôle d’Excellence Cyber) (140KE)
Micro Samba: Développement d’une Meute de micro-AUVs intelligents et d’un micro-SAS pour des Missions adaptatives avec des levées de doute roBotisés Automatiques et une très large couverture de zone(Participant)
2026-2029
Partners: UBS, Pytheas technology, Seaber Funding: BPI France2030 (3,5ME, 600KE (UBS))
VAVIECA: Side-Channel Attacks vulnerabilities on FPGA Deep Neural Networks implementions (Scientific leader)
2021-2024
Funding: DGA through PEC (Pôle d’Excellence Cyber) (140KE)
SecV: Processor obfuscation through dynamical instruction decoding
2022-2025
Funding: ANR PRC (736KE)
SecureIoT (Laureate, scientific leader)
2018-2021
Funding: RFI WISE Attractivité (135KE)
SEROIF: SEcursation des Réseaux d’Objets interconnectés et de l’information pour l’Industrie du Futur (Participant)
2018-2021
Funding: RFI WISE International, mobility (9KE)
TRUST: Towards Reconfigurable and Secured Industrial IoT (Participant)
2018-2021
Funding: RFI WISE, mobility (10KE)
NOPE: Normally-Off Computing (Participant)
2019
Funding: Cominlabs, Exploratory action
Exploration of security and reliability compatibility (Scientific leader)
2013-2017
Funding: PEPS IETR (3,6KE)
TSUNAMY: Hardware and software managemenT of data SecUrity iN A ManY core platform (PhD, Participant)
2013-2017
Funding: ANR PRC (573KE)

PhD supervision

Tsion Fikadu (2025 - ), Embedded Detection of Drone Deviant Behavior
Mohcine Kaddi (2025 - ), Trusted Embedded and Distributed IA
Eliott Quéré (2024-2027), Security Analysis on Heterogeneous Systems on Chip
Owen Le-Gonidec (2023-2026), Securing TEE-enabled RISC-V Processor against Energy-based Attacks
Alla-Eddine Bahi (2023-2026), Covert Channels on Air-Gap Computers
Juliette Pottier (2022-2025), Cache memory Protection through Obfuscation
May Myat Thu (2021-2024), Study of Side-Channel Vulnerabilities in Deep Learning FPGA Implementations of Computer Vision, Research security expert, at Secure-IC, Rennes, France.
Safouane Noubir (2018-2021), Investigation of Security Vulnerabilities of Energy Management on Multi-Core Architectures, today R&D in chip Design, at Rambus.

Invited Talks (since 2025)

Shonan Meeting n°236, Provable Security for Trustworthy Embedded Systems against Physical Attacks - From Theory to Practice, Invited talk: When energy meets security: internal energy-based attacks, Shonan, Japan, 16-19 March 2026.
International Week at UBS, Talk: Security Research at Lab-STICC in Complex Embedded Systems, Lorient, France, 10 March 2026.
SERICS PhD School on Advanced Hardware Security. Invited talk: Micro-Architectural Attacks, Turin, Italy, 26th-31st October, 2025.
HTW’25 High-Tech Women - European Female Leaders in Hardware Cybersecurity. Invited talk: The constant Battle between Performance and Security, Darmstadt, Germany, 4th September 2025.
FETCH-École d’hiver Francophone sur les Technologies de Conception des Systèmes Embarqués Hétérogènes, Invited talk: Quand optimisation énergétique et sécurité se rencontrent. Montréal, Canada, 12th - 14th February, 2025.
PhD School ARCHI 2025. Invited talk: Security of Embedded AI Side-channel attacks for input extraction, Sète, France, March 2025.
Women in Cyber, Cyber INSA. Cybersécurité : Parcours d’expertes, Réseau INSA de France. Invited talk: Conférence Recherche Cybersécurité : Hardware Security Trust on Maritime, Autonomous Drones, 15th May 2025.
General Assembly of Lab-STICC. Invited talk: Meutes de Drones Maritimes Autonomes et de Confiance CPJ M2DMAC, Brest, France, 2025.

Invited Research visit

Invited research visit in collaboration with Ass. Prof. Yuko Hara at Titech Tokyo, Japan, 19-26 April 2025, Funding by World Research Hub (WRH) Japaneese Program award.

Conferences and journal Program Commitee member

TCHES’23-24, DATE’24-26, TECS, TC, VLSI-Security Track, among others

Other research responsabilities

Award Jury Memeber of EDAA (European Design and Automation Association) Outstanding Dissertations Award (Prix de thèse) (2024-2026)
Award Jury Member of Doctoral Thesis Award of GdR Sécurité Informatique (Prix de thèse) (2026)
Referent of CPERs RACAM and BrestBayBase on Maritime Drones for UBS (2024-2027)
Committee member of GdR Sécurité Informatique (since 2024)
Committee member of SemSecuElec INRIA/DGA Seminars (since 2024)
Referent of cyber security activities of IETR lab, ligerian perimeter (2019 - 2024)
Co-referent of Transversal Axis CYbersecurité Matérielle (CYM) of IETR lab (2021-2024)
Referent of IETR lab and INSIS institute, member of the CNRS Cybersecurity Miroir research group (2021)
Referent for EEA club (2018-2024)

CV

CV (short)