Recent News

• [03/2026] Invited to serve as a panelist for the NSF proposal review panel.

• [01/2026] Invited to serve as an ad hoc reviewer for the NSF proposal review panel.

• [11/2025] Invited to serve as associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (TNSM)

• [10/2025] One paper on a lightweight edge backdoor defense has been accepted at the SEC'25/EdgeSP'25.

• [10/2025] One paper on investigating resource utilization on edge distributed AI infrastructure has been accepted at SEC'25/EdgeIntelligence'25.

• [10/2025] One poster on a pruning-based edge backdoor defense has been accepted for poster presentation at the Tenth ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC'25).

• [09/2025] Honored to be one of the contributors for the LEVEL UP AI full report, which details challenges, opportunities, and strategies for building AI education capacity across U.S. higher education.

More

Projects

A. AI Security for Edge/CPS

• Saliency-Guided Lightweight Backdoor Defense for Edge Intelligence. In SEC'25.

• Poster: A Lightweight Pruning for Mitigating Neural Network Backdoor on Edge. In The Tenth ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC'25)

• Unveiling Neural Network Data Free Backdoor Threats in Industrial Control Systems, In CCS'24/RICCS

B. AI-enabled Security Decision Intelligence

Explainable AI - enabled Vulnerability Management

• ILLATION: Improving Vulnerability Risk Prioritization By Learning From Network. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), 2023

• LICALITY—Likelihood and Criticality: Vulnerability Risk Prioritization Through Logical Reasoning and Deep Learning. IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (TNSM), 2021. 

Gen AI - enabled Threat Modeling

• • Facilitating Threat Modeling by Leveraging Large Language Models, In The NSSS'24/AISCC. 

C. Cloud-Edge AI Infrastructure & Applications

• • How Heavy is the Edge? Resource Utilization of Edge Generative AI on Distributed AI Infrastructure. In SEC'25.

  • The Future of Digital Twin Research and Development. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, 25(8). 

  • Enhancing Order Fulfillment Through Production Process Reengineering Using Manufacturing Execution System as a Reference Model. IEEE Access, 2024.

  • The Development of A Large-Scale Cloud Emulator, In 2024 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E'24).

  • Security Challenges for Modern Data Centers with IoT: A Preliminary Study. In Companion Proceedings of the Web Conference 2022.

D. AI-driven Cybersecurity Hands-on Learning

• • Neocyberkg: Enhancing cybersecurity laboratories with a machine learning-enabled knowledge graph. In Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE).

  • Improving student learning performance in a virtual hands-on lab system in cybersecurity education. In FIE'18.

  • Personalized learning in a virtual hands-on lab platform for computer science education. In 2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE'18).

  • Conceptualizing Student Engagement in Virtual Hands-on Lab: Preliminary Findings from a Computer Network Security Course. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE'18).

Services

Grant Panelist

• NSF Proposal Review Panels, 2026,2025,2024

Editorial Board of the Journal

• Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (2025 - )

Technical Program Committee

• CCS 2024 workshop on Adaptive and Autonomous Cyber Defense (AACD 2024)

• NDSS 2024 workshop on AI System with Confidential Computing (AISCC 2024)

  • CCS 2023 workshop on Moving Target Defense (MTD 2023) 

Organizing Committee

• Student Travel Grant Chair, IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM 2025, INFOCOM 2026)

• Social Media Chair, IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2024)

    Reviewer

• Journal: 

  • IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (TNSM), IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC), IEEE Transactions on Reliability, ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems, IEEE Transactions on Education (ToE)

• Conference: 

  • IEEE International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS'22), ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE TC'19, SIGCSE TC'26), ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE'17, ITiCSE'18)

Selected Honors & Awards

• IEEE Senior Member, since Oct. 2025

• NSF NeTS Early Career Workshop, Alexandria, VA, 2025

• "The Teacher Excellence Award" at UWM, 2024 Spring

• NSF CAREER Workshop Mock Panel, Virtual, 2024

• NSF SaTC Aspiring PI Workshop, Chicago, IL, 2024

• NSF Directions for Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) EDU workshop, Dallas, TX, 2023

• CRA (Computing Research Association) Early & Mid Career Mentoring Workshop, Chicago, IL, 2023

• UW System Alliance for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Advancement in STEM workshop, Wisconsin Dells, WI, 2023

• Faculty mentor at Wisconsin Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (WiscAMP) STEM-Inspire Program, 2023 - 2025

• NSF Broaden Engineering Teaching with Theory-based Educational Resources (BETTER) workshop, Milwaukee, WI, 2023

Sponsor