Avatar

Tao Zhang

Distinguished Engineer

Corporate Strategic Innovation Group

Dr. Tao Zhang, a Distinguished Engineer, joined Cisco in 2012 as the Chief Scientist for Smart Connected Vehicles, and has been spearheading architectures, technologies, and eco-systems for the Internet of Things and Fog Computing.

For over 25 years, Tao has been in various technical and executive positions, directing research and product development in broadband, mobile, and vehicular networks and applications. His leadership and technical work have led to pioneering contributions that advanced the state of the art in fiber optic networks, all-IP cellular networks (3G/4G), mobile ad-hoc networks, and vehicular networks; and have resulted in disruptive technology, standards, and products.

In 2010, Tao was elected a Fellow of the IEEE for his outstanding contributions to wireless and infrastructure networking protocols for applications. In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Information Reuse and Integration for his innovative work in Internet Security and Smart Connected Vehicles.

Tao has co-authored two books “Vehicle Safety Communications: Protocols, Security, and Privacy” (2012) and “IP-Based Next Generation Wireless Networks” (2004) published by John Wiley & Sons. He holds 49 US patents and has published over 70 peer-reviewed technical papers on international journals and conferences.

Tao is the Chair of the IEEE Communications Society Technical Sub-Committee on Vehicular Networks and Telematics Applications. He was a founding Board Director of the Connected Vehicle Trade Association (CVTA) and has been serving on the industry advisory boards for several research organizations. He initiated, and served on various leadership positions for, the annual International Conference on Collaborative Computing (CollaborateCom), which inaugurated in 2005 and has since become the IEEE International Conference on Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC). He has been serving on editorial boards or as a guest editor for numerous leading technical journals including the IEEE Internet of Things (IoT) Journal, the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT), the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), and the Springer Journal of Wireless Networks. Tao was also an adjunct professor at multiple universities. He has been frequently invited to speak at international conferences and events.

Articles

February 9, 2017

INNOVATION

‘Crowd Control’ Takes Many Forms to Secure Fog Computing and IoT

In my previous blog, I shared the importance of ubiquitous malware defense. Specifically, it’s critical as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to proliferate, connecting a larger number of devices with vastly diverse capabilities. The answer is fog computing, because fog nodes bring more computin…

June 30, 2016

INNOVATION

Malware Defense is a Team Sport, Best Played by Collaborative Fog Nodes

In my previous blog, I shared an overview of fog-based security services. At the center of these services—and critical for moving the needle on the Internet of Things—is a requirement for ubiquitous malware defense for a large number of devices with vastly diverse capabilities. Through fog, this is…

March 3, 2016

INNOVATION

Fog Boosts Capabilities to Add More Things Securely to the Internet

Today, host-based security mechanisms and cloud-based security services are our primary means to secure endpoints. However, these methods alone will fall short for meeting the security challenges in the emerging Internet of Things, where we must support a significantly larger number of endpoints, ma…

December 2, 2015

1

INNOVATION

A New Security Paradigm Needed to Support the Internet of Things

Shutdown. Cleanup. Restart. This “incident response” approach to cyber security was designed primarily for enterprise networks, data centers, and consumer electronics. It companies perimeter-based protection that uses firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS…