Ke Xu has received the Research Dissertation Award for Research Achievement in Engineering. Dr. Xu graduated in Spring 2004, with Dr. Steve Tate as his major professor. The title of his dissertation was "Mobile Agent Security through Multi-Agent Cryptographic Protocols."

In his research, Dr. Xu showed how mobile code can be protected while on remote hosts in a provably secure way, through innovative use of cryptography and interaction. This work formed the basis for a successful $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Xu now works as part of the security group at NEC Unified Solutions in Irving.