Dr Hammond Pearce

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Dr. Hammond Pearce (he/him) is a Senior Lecturer (a.k.a. Assistant Professor) at ��¼� Sydney's School of Computer Science and Engineering.

His main research focus is in hardware and software cybersecurity, including embedded systems, cyber-physical systems, and additive manufacturing. He also examines the implications of machine learning (ML) on design and applications in this space. He is particularly interested in how AI might be leveraged for new design strategies, including automated code writing and bug repair. As part of this work he won the inaugural , the IEEE S&P Distinguished Paper award, and the ACM TODAES Best Paper Award.

He received the B.E. (Hons) degree in Computer Systems Engineering in 2014 and the Ph.D. in Computer Systems Engineering in 2020 both from the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. In 2019 he took part in the NASA International Internship Programme and worked at NASA Ames in California, and he has also worked in several industry positions, including as a full-stack web developer and as an electronics contractor working on Li-ion battery management systems.

He teaches COMP3601 Design Project A, where students are introduced to complex FPGA development via the development of a large group project.

E-mail

hammond.pearce@unsw.edu.au

Location

K17-217E

Journal articles | 2025

Ahmad B; Ah-kiow J; Tan B; Karri R; Pearce H, 2025, 'FLAG: F inding L ine A nomalies (in RTL code) with G enerative AI', ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems,

Journal articles | 2025

Blocklove J; Thakur S; Tan B; Pearce H; Garg S; Karri R, 2025, 'Automatically Improving LLM-based Verilog Generation using EDA Tool Feedback', ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems,

Journal articles | 2025

Mittal S; Pearce H; Yampolskiy M; Oromiehie E; Prusty BG, 2025, 'On cyber sabotage risks in automated manufacturing of advanced composites', Additive Manufacturing Letters, 13,

Journal articles | 2025

Pearce H; Ahmad B; Tan B; Dolan-Gavitt B; Karri R, 2025, 'Asleep at the Keyboard? Assessing the Security of GitHub Copilot’s Code Contributions', Communications of the ACM, 68, pp. 96 - 105,

Journal articles | 2024

Ahmad B; Thakur S; Tan B; Karri R; Pearce H, 2024, 'On Hardware Security Bug Code Fixes by Prompting Large Language Models', IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 19, pp. 4043 - 4057,

Journal articles | 2024

Baird A; Panda A; Pearce H; Pinisetty S; Roop P, 2024, 'Scalable Security Enforcement for Cyber Physical Systems', IEEE Access, 12, pp. 14385 - 14410,

Journal articles | 2024

Kande R; Pearce H; Tan B; Dolan-Gavitt B; Thakur S; Karri R; Rajendran J, 2024, '(Security) Assertions by Large Language Models', IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 19, pp. 4374 - 4389,

Journal articles | 2024

Krishnamurthy P; Pearce H; Surabhi VR; Trujillo J; Karri R; Khorrami F, 2024, 'MUDDLE: Multi-Modal Dynamic Detector Loopback Evaluator to Expose Trojans in Zero-Trust PCB Systems', IEEE Micro,

Journal articles | 2024

Surabhi VR; Sadhukhan R; Raz M; Pearce H; Krishnamurthy P; Trujillo J; Karri R; Khorrami F, 2024, 'FEINT: Automated Framework for Efficient INsertion of Templates/Trojans into FPGAs', Information Switzerland, 15,

Journal articles | 2024

Thakur S; Ahmad B; Pearce H; Tan B; Dolan-Gavitt B; Karri R; Garg S, 2024, 'VeriGen: A Large Language Model for Verilog Code Generation', ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems, 29,

Journal articles | 2024

Udeshi M; Krishnamurthy P; Pearce H; Karri R; Khorrami F, 2024, 'REMaQE: Reverse Engineering Math Equations from Executables', ACM Transactions on Cyber Physical Systems, 8,

Journal articles | 2023

Krishnamurthy P; Surabhi VR; Pearce H; Karri R; Khorrami F, 2023, 'Multi-Modal Side Channel Data Driven Golden-Free Detection of Software and Firmware Trojans', IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 20, pp. 4664 - 4677,

Journal articles | 2023

Pearce H; Karri R; Tan B, 2023, 'High-Level Approaches to Hardware Security: A Tutorial', ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, 22,

Journal articles | 2023

Pearce H; Roop P, 2023, 'Decoding ChatGPT's 'impact' on the future of healthcare', Cancer Research Statistics and Treatment, 6, pp. 91 - 93,

Journal articles | 2022

Beckwith C; Naicker HS; Mehta S; Udupa VR; Nim NT; Gadre V; Pearce H; Mac G; Gupta N, 2022, 'Needle in a Haystack: Detecting Subtle Malicious Edits to Additive Manufacturing G-Code Files', IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, 14, pp. 111 - 114,

Journal articles | 2022

Mac G; Mandal M; Rastogi A; Gailani G; Pearce H; Gupta N, 2022, 'Application of micro-computed tomography for authentication of 3D printed composite parts', Additive Manufacturing Letters, 3,

Journal articles | 2022

Pearce H; Surabhi VR; Krishnamurthy P; Trujillo J; Karri R; Khorrami F, 2022, 'Detecting Hardware Trojans in PCBs Using Side Channel Loopbacks', IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration VLSI Systems, 30, pp. 926 - 937,

Journal articles | 2022

Pearce H; Yanamandra K; Gupta N; Karri R, 2022, 'FLAW3D: A Trojan-Based Cyber Attack on the Physical Outcomes of Additive Manufacturing', IEEE ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 27, pp. 5361 - 5370,

Journal articles | 2022

Srivastava H; Pearce H; Mac G; Gupta N, 2022, 'Determination of Fiber Content in 3-D Printed Composite Parts Using Image Analysis', IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, 14, pp. 115 - 118,

Journal articles | 2021

Mac G; Pearce H; Karri R; Gupta N, 2021, 'Uncertainty quantification in dimensions dataset of additive manufactured NIST standard test artifact', Data in Brief, 38,

Journal articles | 2021

Pearce H; Yang X; Katzef M; Strøm TB; Roop PS, 2021, 'Designing Neural Networks for Real-Time Systems', IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, 13, pp. 94 - 97,

Journal articles | 2020

Pearce H; Pinisetty S; Roop PS; Kuo MMY; Ukil A, 2020, 'Smart I/O Modules for Mitigating Cyber-Physical Attacks on Industrial Control Systems', IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 16, pp. 4659 - 4669,
Preprints | 2025

Ahmad B; Pearce H; Karri R; Tan B, 2025, LASHED: LLMs And Static Hardware Analysis for Early Detection of RTL Bugs,

Preprints | 2025

Chang J; Li H; Pearce H; Sun R; Li B; Xue M, 2025, What's Pulling the Strings? Evaluating Integrity and Attribution in AI Training and Inference through Concept Shift,

Preprints | 2025

Ghimire S; Chowdhury MA; Latibari BS; Mamun M; Carpenter JW; Tan B; Pearce H; Chakrabarty K; Satam P; Salehi S, 2025, Hardware Design and Security Needs Attention: From Survey to Path Forward,

Conference Papers | 2025

Pearce H, 2025, 'Experiences scaffolding a computer engineering project course to improve student outcomes', in 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), IEEE, pp. 1 - 5, presented at 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 25 May 2025 - 28 May 2025,

Conference Papers | 2024

Afsharmazayejani R; Shahmiri MM; Link P; Pearce H; Tan B, 2024, 'Toward Hardware Security Benchmarking of LLMs', in 2024 IEEE Llm Aided Design Workshop Lad 2024,

Conference Papers | 2024

Blocklove J; Garg S; Karri R; Pearce H, 2024, 'Evaluating LLMs for Hardware Design and Test', in 2024 IEEE Llm Aided Design Workshop Lad 2024,

Preprints | 2024

Blocklove J; Garg S; Karri R; Pearce H, 2024, Evaluating LLMs for Hardware Design and Test,

Conference Papers | 2024

Blocklove J; Raz M; Roy PB; Pearce H; Krishnamurthy P; Khorrami F; Karri R, 2024, 'Offramps: An FPGA-Based Intermediary for Analysis and Modification of Additive Manufacturing Control Systems', in Proceedings 2024 54th Annual IEEE IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Dsn 2024, pp. 535 - 543,

Preprints | 2024

Blocklove J; Raz M; Roy PB; Pearce H; Krishnamurthy P; Khorrami F; Karri R, 2024, OffRAMPS: An FPGA-based Intermediary for Analysis and Modification of Additive Manufacturing Control Systems,

Preprints | 2024

Blocklove J; Thakur S; Tan B; Pearce H; Garg S; Karri R, 2024, Automatically Improving LLM-based Verilog Generation using EDA Tool Feedback,

Conference Papers | 2024

Karumba S; Chau SC-K; Pearce H; Ahmed M; Janicke H, 2024, 'Systematic Study of Cybersecurity Threats for Smart Inverters', in The 15th ACM International Conference on Future and Sustainable Energy Systems, ACM, pp. 669 - 675, presented at e-Energy '24: The 15th ACM International Conference on Future and Sustainable Energy Systems,

Preprints | 2024

Mei X; Singaria PS; Castillo JD; Xi H; Abdelouahab ; Benchikh ; Bao T; Wang R; Shoshitaishvili Y; Doupé A; Pearce H; Dolan-Gavitt B, 2024, ARVO: Atlas of Reproducible Vulnerabilities for Open Source Software,

Conference Papers | 2024

Pearce H; Tan B, 2024, 'Large Language Models for Hardware Security (Invited, Short Paper)', in Proceedings 2024 IEEE 6th International Conference on Trust Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems and Applications Tps ISA 2024, pp. 420 - 423,

Conference Papers | 2024

Qiu S; Tan B; Pearce H, 2024, 'LLM-aided explanations of EDA synthesis errors', in 2024 IEEE Llm Aided Design Workshop Lad 2024,

Preprints | 2024

Qiu S; Tan B; Pearce H, 2024, LLM-aided explanations of EDA synthesis errors,

Preprints | 2024

Sun R; Chang J; Pearce H; Xiao C; Li B; Wu Q; Nepal S; Xue M, 2024, SoK: Unifying Cybersecurity and Cybersafety of Multimodal Foundation Models with an Information Theory Approach,

Conference Papers | 2024

Taylor A; Vassar A; Renzella J; Pearce H, 2024, 'dcc - Help: Transforming the Role of the Compiler by Generating Context-Aware Error Explanations with Large Language Models', in SIGCSE 2024 Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pp. 1314 - 1320,

Conference Papers | 2024

Tripuramallu D; Anand A; Pinisetty S; Pearce H; Roop P, 2024, 'Runtime Verified Neural Networks for Cyber-Physical Systems', in Vortex 2024 Proceedings of the 7th ACM International Workshop on Verification and Monitoring at Runtime Execution Co Located with Issta 2024, pp. 44 - 51,

Conference Papers | 2024

Ullah S; Han M; Pujar S; Pearce H; Coskun A; Stringhini G, 2024, 'LLMs Cannot Reliably Identify and Reason about Security Vulnerabilities (Yet?): A Comprehensive Evaluation, Framework, and Benchmarks', in Proceedings IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 862 - 880,

Preprints | 2023

Ahmad B; Tan B; Karri R; Pearce H, 2023, FLAG: Finding Line Anomalies (in code) with Generative AI,

Preprints | 2023

Ahmad B; Thakur S; Tan B; Karri R; Pearce H, 2023, Fixing Hardware Security Bugs with Large Language Models,

Conference Papers | 2023

Blocklove J; Garg S; Karri R; Pearce H, 2023, 'Chip-Chat: Challenges and Opportunities in Conversational Hardware Design', in 2023 ACM IEEE 5th Workshop on Machine Learning for CAD Mlcad 2023,

Preprints | 2023

Blocklove J; Garg S; Karri R; Pearce H, 2023, Chip-Chat: Challenges and Opportunities in Conversational Hardware Design,

Conference Papers | 2023

Chowdhury AB; Thakur S; Pearce H; Karri R; Garg S, 2023, 'Invited Paper: Towards the Imagenets of ML4EDA', in IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, Digest of Technical Papers, ICCAD,

Preprints | 2023

Chowdhury AB; Thakur S; Pearce H; Karri R; Garg S, 2023, Towards the Imagenets of ML4EDA,

Preprints | 2023

Kande R; Pearce H; Tan B; Dolan-Gavitt B; Thakur S; Karri R; Rajendran J, 2023, (Security) Assertions by Large Language Models,

Conference Papers | 2023

Krishnamurthy P; Pearce H; Surabhi VR; Trujillo J; Karri R; Khorrami F, 2023, 'An Integrated Testbed for Trojans in Printed Circuit Boards with Fuzzing Capabilities', in Proceedings 2023 IEEE 29th International Symposium on on Line Testing and Robust System Design Iolts 2023,

Conference Papers | 2023

Nair M; Sadhukhan R; Pearce H; Mukhopadhyay D; Karri R, 2023, 'Netlist Whisperer: AI and NLP Fight Circuit Leakage!', in ASHES 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 Workshop on Attacks and Solutions in Hardware Security, pp. 83 - 92,

Conference Papers | 2023

Pearce H; Tan B; Ahmad B; Karri R; Dolan-Gavitt B, 2023, 'Examining Zero-Shot Vulnerability Repair with Large Language Models', in Proceedings IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 2339 - 2356,

Conference Papers | 2023

Pearce H; Tan B; Ahmad B; Karri R; Dolan-Gavitt B, 2023, 'Examining Zero-Shot Vulnerability Repair with Large Language Models', in Proceedings IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 2339 - 2356,

Preprints | 2023

Roy PB; Bhargava M; Chang C-Y; Hui E; Gupta N; Karri R; Pearce H, 2023, A survey of Digital Manufacturing Hardware and Software Trojans,

Conference Papers | 2023

Sandoval G; Pearce H; Nys T; Karri R; Garg S; Dolan-Gavitt B, 2023, 'Lost at C: A User Study on the Security Implications of Large Language Model Code Assistants', in 32nd Usenix Security Symposium Usenix Security 2023, pp. 2205 - 2222

Preprints | 2023

Taylor A; Vassar A; Renzella J; Pearce H, 2023, Dcc --help: Generating Context-Aware Compiler Error Explanations with Large Language Models,

Conference Papers | 2023

Thakur S; Ahmad B; Fan Z; Pearce H; Tan B; Karri R; Dolan-Gavitt B; Garg S, 2023, 'Benchmarking Large Language Models for Automated Verilog RTL Code Generation', in Proceedings Design Automation and Test in Europe Date,

Preprints | 2023

Thakur S; Ahmad B; Pearce H; Tan B; Dolan-Gavitt B; Karri R; Garg S, 2023, VeriGen: A Large Language Model for Verilog Code Generation,

Preprints | 2023

Thakur S; Blocklove J; Pearce H; Tan B; Garg S; Karri R, 2023, AutoChip: Automating HDL Generation Using LLM Feedback,

Preprints | 2023

Udeshi M; Krishnamurthy P; Pearce H; Karri R; Khorrami F, 2023, REMaQE: Reverse Engineering Math Equations from Executables,

Preprints | 2023

Ullah S; Han M; Pujar S; Pearce H; Coskun A; Stringhini G, 2023, LLMs Cannot Reliably Identify and Reason About Security Vulnerabilities (Yet?): A Comprehensive Evaluation, Framework, and Benchmarks,

Preprints | 2023

Veldanda AK; Grob F; Thakur S; Pearce H; Tan B; Karri R; Garg S, 2023, Are Emily and Greg Still More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? Investigating Algorithmic Hiring Bias in the Era of ChatGPT,

Preprints | 2022

Ahmad B; Liu W-K; Collini L; Pearce H; Fung JM; Valamehr J; Bidmeshki M; Sapiecha P; Brown S; Chakrabarty K; Karri R; Tan B, 2022, Don't CWEAT It: Toward CWE Analysis Techniques in Early Stages of Hardware Design,

Conference Papers | 2022

Ahmad B; Liu WK; Collini L; Pearce H; Fung JM; Valamehr J; Bidmeshki M; Sapiecha P; Brown S; Chakrabarty K; Karri R; Tan B, 2022, 'Don t CWEAT it: Toward CWE analysis techniques in early stages of hardware design', in IEEE ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design Digest of Technical Papers Iccad,

Conference Papers | 2022

Baird A; Pearce H; Pinisetty S; Roop P, 2022, 'Runtime Interchange of Enforcers for Adaptive Attacks: A Security Analysis Framework for Drones', in 2022 20th ACM IEEE International Conference on Formal Methods and Models for System Design Memocode 2022,

Conference Papers | 2022

Pearce H; Ahmad B; Tan B; Dolan-Gavitt B; Karri R, 2022, 'Asleep at the Keyboard? Assessing the Security of GitHub Copilot's Code Contributions', in Proceedings IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 754 - 768,

Preprints | 2022

Pearce H; Karri R; Tan B, 2022, High-Level Approaches to Hardware Security: A Tutorial,

Preprints | 2022

Pearce H; Tan B; Krishnamurthy P; Khorrami F; Karri R; Dolan-Gavitt B, 2022, Pop Quiz! Can a Large Language Model Help With Reverse Engineering?,

Other | 2022

Pinisetty S; Allen N; Pearce H; Trew M; Gaur MS; Roop P, 2022, Formal Methods for the Security of Medical Devices1,

Preprints | 2022

Sandoval G; Pearce H; Nys T; Karri R; Garg S; Dolan-Gavitt B, 2022, Lost at C: A User Study on the Security Implications of Large Language Model Code Assistants,

Preprints | 2022

Thakur S; Ahmad B; Fan Z; Pearce H; Tan B; Karri R; Dolan-Gavitt B; Garg S, 2022, Benchmarking Large Language Models for Automated Verilog RTL Code Generation,

Preprints | 2021

Beckwith C; Naicker HS; Mehta S; Udupa VR; Nim NT; Gadre V; Pearce H; Mac G; Gupta N, 2021, Needle in a Haystack: Detecting Subtle Malicious Edits to Additive Manufacturing G-code Files,

Preprints | 2021

Pearce H; Ahmad B; Tan B; Dolan-Gavitt B; Karri R, 2021, Asleep at the Keyboard? Assessing the Security of GitHub Copilot's Code Contributions,

Preprints | 2021

Pearce H; Tan B; Ahmad B; Karri R; Dolan-Gavitt B, 2021, Examining Zero-Shot Vulnerability Repair with Large Language Models,

Preprints | 2021

Pearce H; Yanamandra K; Gupta N; Karri R, 2021, FLAW3D: A Trojan-based Cyber Attack on the Physical Outcomes of Additive Manufacturing, ,

Preprints | 2021

Pearce H; Yang X; Pinisetty S; Roop PS, 2021, Runtime Interchange for Adaptive Re-use of Intelligent Cyber-Physical System Controllers, ,

Conference Papers | 2020

Pearce H; Tan B; Karri R, 2020, 'Dave: Deriving automatically verilog from English', in Mlcad 2020 Proceedings of the 2020 ACM IEEE Workshop on Machine Learning for CAD, pp. 27 - 32,

Preprints | 2020

Pearce H; Tan B; Karri R, 2020, DAVE: Deriving Automatically Verilog from English,

Preprints | 2020

Pearce H; Yang X; Roop PS; Katzef M; Strøm TB, 2020, Designing Neural Networks for Real-Time Systems,

Conference Papers | 2020

Yang X; Roop P; Pearce H; Ro JW, 2020, 'A compositional approach using Keras for neural networks in real-time systems', in Proceedings of the 2020 Design Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition Date 2020, pp. 1109 - 1114,

Conference Papers | 2019

Pearce H; Kuo MMY; Roop PS; Pinisetty S, 2019, 'Securing implantable medical devices with runtime enforcement hardware', in Memocode 2019 17th ACM IEEE International Conference on Formal Methods and Models for System Design,

Conference Papers | 2019

Pearce H; Roop P, 2019, 'Synthesizing IEC 61499 function blocks to hardware', in Iceic 2019 International Conference on Electronics Information and Communication,

Conference Papers | 2018

Pearce H; Roop P; Biglari-Abhari M; Schoeberl M, 2018, 'Faster function blocks for precision timed industrial automation', in Proceedings 2018 IEEE 21st International Symposium on Real Time Computing Isorc 2018, pp. 67 - 74,

Conference Papers | 2018

Roop PS; Pearce H; Monadjem K, 2018, 'Synchronous neural networks for cyber-physical systems', in 2018 16th ACM IEEE International Conference on Formal Methods and Models for System Design Memocode 2018,

Conference Papers | 2017

Allen N; Pearce H; Roop P; Von Hanxleden R, 2017, 'A model driven approach for cardiac pacemaker design using a PRET processor', in Proceedings 2017 IEEE 20th International Symposium on Real Time Distributed Computing Isorc 2017, pp. 168 - 175,

Conference Papers | 2017

Pearce HA; Kuo MMY; Allen N; Roop PS; Malik A, 2017, 'Simulation of cyber-physical systems using IEC61499', in Memocode 2017 15th ACM IEEE International Conference on Formal Methods and Models for System Design, pp. 136 - 145,

Conference Papers | 2016

Pearce HA; Kuo MMY; Roop PS; Biglari-Abhari M, 2016, 'RunSync: A predictable runtime for precision timed automation systems', in Proceedings 2016 IEEE 19th International Symposium on Real Time Distributed Computing Isorc 2016, pp. 116 - 123,

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