Sensing With Better Security and Privacy

I am an incoming assistant professor at The University of Virginia, Computer Science. My research is broadly in cyber-physical system (CPS) security and privacy and spans the intersections of embedded systems, sensing, and mobile computing. I seek to ensure trustworthy and confidential sensing-based computation in user-device interactions, critical infrastructures, and emerging technologies, with a focus on the hardware-software interfaces. I received my PhD degree from the University of Michigan, EECS. I am currently working with my PhD advisor Prof. Kevin Fu (Fellow of IEEE, ACM, AAAS) at the Security And Privacy Research Group (SPQR).

[Call For Papers] Prof. Wayne Burleson and I are editing a Special Issue, Sensors in Hardware Security, with the Sensors journal. The special issue seeks to highlight solid research on how to use sensors for hardware security and how to protect sensing. Please check out the special issue website and consider submitting your work before May 2025!

Research Interests

• Protecting user privacy from evolving sensors (IEEE S&P’23, RAID’23) and side-channel problems (IEEE S&P’23, NDSS’24)
• Modeling the security impact of physcial signals such as acoustics, lasers, electromagentic interference on computer vision (VehicleSec’24), speech processing (IEEE S&P’24), and other sensing systems (NDSS’24)
• Designing novel sensing software and hardware systems for security (ACM CCS’19, ACM NSPW’22) and healthcare (UbiComp/IMWUT’21)
• Sensing-related security and privacy problems in Android, AR/VR, and other emerging mobile computing platforms, as well as DeepFake multimedia.

Open-source Project

EM Eye: Eavesdropping on Embedded Cameras
In NDSS 2024
[Code] [Website] [PDF] [Talk]

Private Eye: Eyeglass Reflection Leaking Screen Contents
In IEEE S&P 2023
[Code] [Paper Link] [PDF] [Presentation]

News

• [Mar 17, 2025] I will give a guest lecture at MIT 6.5950/6.5951 Secure Hardware Design.
• [Feb, 2025] Our work “How Lasers Exploit Photoacoustic and PhotoelectricPhenomena to Inject Signals into MEMS Microphones” is accepted by Journal of Hardware and Systems Security.
• [Feb, 2025] Our work “EyeHearYou: Probing Location Identification via Occluded Smartphone Cameras and Ultrasound” will appear at IEEE HOST 2025.
• [🔬 Sensors Journal] I am guest editing the Sensors in Hardware Security Special Issue with the Sensors Journal. The submission deadline is May 2025.
• [🔬 NEHWS’25] I will be serving on program committee of New England Hardware Security Day (NEHWS) 2025, which will be held at MIT this year. Consider submitting your previous publications and give a talk!
• [🔬 CCS’25] I will be serving on program committee of ACM CCS 2025, dedicated to the Hardware, Side Channels, and Cyber-Physical Systems Track.
• [🔬 MobiSys’25] I will be serving on program committee of MobiSys 2025.
• [🏆 CSAW’24] Our research EM Eye, NDSS’24 which discovers how attackers can eavesdrop on confidential videos of IoT cameras was selected as a finalist in the CSAW Applied Research Competition (top 8% of all submisisons). Let’s meet in NYC!
• [Sep 1, 2024] We are organizing the Northeastern Security Seminar. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in giving a research talk in Boston.
• [Aug 1, 2024] I am joining Northeastern University in Boston as a one-year postdoc researcher, continuing my work with Dr. Kevin Fu.
• [🏆 Oakland’24] Our paper won the Distinguished Paper Award at IEEE S&P 2024 (top 3% of accepted papers).

Research Highlights