PhD Students
- Nicholas Wang, UIUC (2023 – Present)
- Apurva Virkud, UIUC (2022 – Present, co-advised with Adam Bates)
- Hadjer Benkraouda, UIUC (2021 – Present)
- Margie Ruffin, UIUC (2020 – Present, co-advised with Kirill Levchenko)
- Zhi Chen, UIUC (2020 – Present)
- Jaron Mink, UIUC (2019 – Present)
- Qingying Hao, UIUC (2018 – Present)
- Limin Yang, UIUC (2018 – 2023) → ByteDance
- Steve T.K. Jan, VT (2014 – 2020) → ByteDance
- Hang Hu, VT (2016 – 2020) → Google
MS Students
- Anusha Ghosh, UIUC (2023 – Present)
- Nirav Diwan, UIUC (2022 – Present)
- Zhenning Zhang, UIUC (2022 – Present)
- Nicholas Wang, UIUC (2021 – 2023) → UIUC Ph.D.
- Licheng Luo, UIUC (2020 – 2022) → Jump Trading
- Rishabh Chhabra, UIUC (2020 – 2021) → Amazon
- Tianrui Hu, VT (2018 – 2020) → PhD at Northeastern
- Chao Xu, VT (2018 – 2020) → ByteDance
- Jiamin Wang, VT (2018 – 2020) → TSMC Technology
- Peng Peng, VT (2017 – 2019) → Palo Alto Networks
- Xiangwen Wang, VT (2017 – 2019) → Google
- Chun Wang, VT (2016 – 2018) → IBM
Undergraduate Students
- Ezra Goodwin (2023 – Present)
- Jeffrey Zhai (2023 – Present)
- Shuo Wang (2023 – Present)
- Mutma Adebayo (2022 – Present)
- Sushruth Booma (2022 – Present)
- Zhuofan Jia (2022 – 2023) → Ph.D. at Duke
- Kevin Tu (2021 – 2022) → Underg. at UIUC
- JT Kirages (2021 – 2022) → MCS at UIUC
- Saidivya Ashok, UIUC (2020 – Present) → MS at CMU
- Zhengdai Hu, UIUC (2020 – 2021) → Google
- Nicholas Wang, UIUC (2020 – Present) → MS at UIUC
- Olivia Figueira, Santa Clara University, undergraduate intern (2020 – 2021) → PhD at UC Irvine
- Shihan Lin, Fudan, undergraduate intern (2018 - 2019) → PhD at Duke
- Shinan Liu, UESTC, undergraduate intern (2017 - 2019) → PhD at UChicago
- Luke Quinn, VT (2018 – 2019) → MITRE
- Douglas Bossart, VT (2017 – 2019) → U.S. Army ERDC
Visiting Scholar
- Ying Yuan (2023), PhD at University of Padova → Postdoc at CISPA
Q: Why UIUC PhD Program?
UIUC has one of the top computer science programs around the world. You can find more information about the CS department. CS Rankings is another useful website to search for active faculty members in different research areas in computer science.
Q: What are you looking for in prospective students?
I am always looking for students to join my research group. As a PhD student, self-motivation is important --- you are expected to lead one or more projects (e.g., after 1-2 years) and proactively drive the research agenda. I also like students who are energetic and curious, which are critical qualities to identify important research problems and find new solutions. Regarding technical skills, I expect students to be competent programmers. In addition, my research area involves extensive data analytics. I expect students to have basic knowledge of statistcs.
Q: What should I do if I want to work with you?
The best thing to do is to read several of our recent papers, and email your CV to introduce yourself. Please understand that we receive a lot of emails from prospective students, and we may not be able to respond to inquiries that do not exhibit a clear match.
My primary research area is security and privacy in networks and systems. I am also interested in data mining and machine learning. If you are not interested in any of those areas, then I am not the right advisor for you. If you haven't been admitted to UIUC, I suggest you going through the application process first. You can mark my name in your application so that I can easily find your case.
Important Note: for international students, please pay attention to the TOEFL test requirement here (see the "Financial Aid" section).
Q: I am a Masters/Undergraduate student at UIUC, can I join your research projects?
Absolutely! I enjoy working with masters/Undergraduate students who are interested in doing research. If you are already enrolled in UIUC, you can email your CV and tell me about your interests. Another way is to take my class. Students who excel in class and actively participate have the best chance to join my lab to work on real research projects.