I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Engineering, UBC's Okanagan Campus. I am also a Tier-2 Principal's Research Chair in Blockchain and Co-Cluster Lead of Blockchain@UBC. Prior to joining UBC, I received my PhD from The University of Toronto under the supervision of Prof. Frank Kschischang and Prof. Baochun Li, and I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL with Prof. Michael Gastpar and Boston University with Prof. Bobak Nazer.
Email: chen.feng (at) ubc (dot) ca
CV: My UBC CV is here.
Research
My research interests include information and coding theory, wireless communications and networking, cloud computing and big data, quantum communications, and very recently blockchain technology. In particular, I am interested in adapting new ideas and tools from information theory, coding theory, stochastic processes, and optimization to design better communication networks with a particular emphasis on quantum communications and blockchain technology.
Below are some of my major research projects (since I joined UBC Okanagan Campus).
Stochastic Analysis for Blockchains: This project develops new stochastic analysis for next-generation blockchains with a particular focus on their incentive design and consensus algorithms. It applies stochastic processes to analyze the incentive design of two famous permissionless blockchains (Ethereum and Bitcoin-NG) as well as the throughout and delay performance of a well-known permissioned blockchain (the Libra/Diem blockchain).
Systems Aspect of Blockchains: A primary goal of my research is to bridge the gap between theoretical advances and system implementations. This motivates my research group to conduct a measurement study for the Bitcoin lightning network, build a benchmark platform for next-generation permissioned blockchains, collaborate with Dapper Labs Inc. to develop their Flow blockchain platform, design and implement a novel sidechain solution to blockchain scaling, as well as provide guidelines for creating decentralized applications.
Algebraic Information Theory for Wireless Relay Networks: This project extends my PhD dissertation, developing a foundational framework towards algebraic information theory for wireless relay networks. It introduces various algebraic tools to network information theory, allowing researchers to derive new achievable rate regions enabled by random structured codes (which are impossible with the conventional Shannon-style random i.i.d. codes).
Coding Techniques for Quantum Communications: This project aims to develop novel coding techniques for emerging applications in quantum communications such as quantum fingerprinting and quantum key distribution.
Mean-Field Theory for Cloud Computing: This project applies mean-field theory to design and analyze high-performance load balancing algorithms for cloud computing.
Selected Publications
For a full list, please see my Google Scholar page or my UBC CV. The highly qualified personnel (HQP) under my supervision are shown in bold underline.
Journals
Mohammad M. Jalalzai, Chen Feng, Costas Busch, Golden G. Richard III, and Jianyu Niu, “The Hermes BFT for Blockchains,” accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 08/2021
Jianyu Niu, Ziyu Wang, Fangyu Gai, and Chen Feng, “Incentive Analysis of Bitcoin-NG, Revisited,” Performance Evaluation, vol. 144, 17 pages, December 2020.
Sung-Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Adriano Pastore, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “Compute-Forward for DMCs: Simultaneous Decoding of Multiple Combinations,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 66, no. 10, pp. 6242-6255, October 2020.
Sung-Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Adriano Pastore, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “A Joint Typicality Approach to Compute-Forward,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 64, no. 12, pp. 7657-7685, December 2018.
Chunpu Wang, Chen Feng, and Julian Cheng, “Distributed Join-the-Idle-Queue for Low Latency Cloud Services,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 2309-2319, October 2018.
Wei Cai, Zehua Wang, Jason B. Ernst, Zhen Hong, Chen Feng, and Victor Leung, “Decentralized Applications: The Blockchain Empowered Software System,” IEEE Access, vol. 6, pp. 53019-53033, September 2018.
Mario Milicevic, Chen Feng, Lei Zhang, and P. Glenn Gulak, “Quasi-Cyclic Multi-Edge LDPC Codes for Long-Distance Quantum Cryptography,” Nature Partner Journal (npj) Quantum Information, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 21-29, April 2018.
Feihu Xu, Juan Miguel Arrazola, Kejin Wei, Wenyuan Wang, Pablo Palacios-Avila, Chen Feng, Shihan Sajeed, Norbert Lutkenhaus, and Hoi-Kwong Lo, “Experimental Quantum Fingerprinting with Weak Coherent Pulses,” Nature Communications, vol. 6, 9 pages, October 2015.
Chen Feng, Roberto W. Nobrega, Frank R. Kschischang, and Danilo Silva, “Communication over Finite-Chain-Ring Matrix Channels,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 60, no. 10, pp. 5899-5917, October 2014.
Chen Feng, Danilo Silva, and Frank R. Kschischang, “An Algebraic Approach to Physical-Layer Network Coding,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 59, no. 11, pp. 7576-7596, November 2013.
Conference Proceedings (in the past three years)
Adriano Pastore, Sung Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “A Discretization Approach to Compute-Forward,” in Proc. of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Virtual Event, July 2021, 5 pages.
Fangyu Gai, Ali Farahbakhsh, Jianyu Niu, Chen Feng, Ivan Beschastnikh, and Hao Duan, “Dissecting the Performance of Chained-BFT,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Virtual Event, July 2021, 12 pages. (Acceptance rate 19.8%)
Fangyu Gai, Jianyu Niu, Mohammad M. Jalalzai, Seyed Ali Tabatabaee, and Chen Feng “Cumulus: A Secure BFT-based Sidechain for Off-chain Scaling,” in Proc. of IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Quality of Service (IWQoS), (short paper), Virtual Event, June 2021, 6 pages.
Jianyu Niu, Fangyu Gai, Mohammad M. Jalalzai, and Chen Feng, “On the Performance of Pipelined HotStuff,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Vancouver, Canada, May 2021, 10 pages. (Acceptance rate 19.9%)
Jianyu Niu, Ziyu Wang, Fangyu Gai, and Chen Feng, “Incentive Analysis of Bitcoin-NG, Revisited,” in Proc. of ACM International Symposium on Computer Performance Modeling, Measurements and Evaluation (Performance), Politecnico di Milano, Italy, November 2020, 10 pages.
Chen Feng, Nan Li, M.H. Franco Wong, and Mingyue Zhang, “Initial Coin Offerings, Blockchain Technology, and White Paper Disclosures,” in Proc. of China International Conference in Finance (CICF), Guangzhou, China, July 2019, 38 pages. (Acceptance rate 18.1%)
Yuwei Guo, Jinfeng Tong, and Chen Feng, “A Measurement Study of Bitcoin Lightning Network,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain-2019), Atlanta, USA, July 2019, 10 pages. (Acceptance rate 15.9%)
Sung-Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Adriano Pastore, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “Towards an Algebraic Network Information Theory: Distributed Lossy Computation of Linear Functions,” in Proc. of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Paris, France, July 2019, 5 pages.
Jianyu Niu and Chen Feng, “Selfish Mining in Ethereum,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Dallas, TX, USA, July 2019, 11 pages. (Acceptance rate 19.6%)