Sensing With Better Security and Privacy

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 where I worked with my PhD advisor Kevin Fu (Fellow of IEEE, ACM, AAAS). I completed my undergraduate study at Zhejiang University, where I worked with Wenyuan Xu (Fellow of IEEE) and Xiaoyu Ji. My research has been recognized by the IEEE S&P Distinguished Paper Award, CPS Rising Stars Award, and IEEE HOST Best PhD Thesis Award, and reported by Fox News, TechRadar, The Register, etc.

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 (RAID’25, 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 (WiSec’25), AR/VR, and other emerging mobile computing platforms, as well as DeepFake multimedia.

Open-source Project

[NEW] ARMOUR: Android Runtime Zero-permission Sensor Usage Monitoring from User Space
In ACM WiSec 2025
[Code] [PDF]

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

• [Aug, 2025] Our work “RF-Eye-D: Probing Feasibility of CMOS Camera Watermarking with Radio-Frequency Injection” is accepted at RAID’25.
• [🔬 USENIX’26] I will serve on the program committee of USENIX Security 2026.
• [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 Photoelectric Phenomena to Inject Signals into MEMS Microphones” is accepted by Journal of Hardware and Systems Security.
• [🔬 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