Ph.D. in Computer Science

yzhang0701@gmail.com

Google Scholar, GitHub, LinkedIn, Twitter, Curriculum Vitae

About Me

I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher with the Secure Systems Laboratory (SSL) at the Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, advised by Prof. Justin Cappos. I obtained my Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science, Stevens Institute of Technology, where I was fortunately co-advised by Prof. Jun Xu, and Prof. Georgios Portokalidis. Before joining Stevens, I studied at the Michtom School of Computer Science, Brandeis University for the Master's degree, advised by Prof. Hongfu Liu. Prior to Brandeis, I received my Bachelor's degree from Boston University, majoring in Computer Science. I am broadly interested in any type of fuzzing, static analysis, system security, and software security, with the current focus on Rust programming and software supply chain security. 

Education

• Ph.D., Department of Computer Science, Stevens Institute of Technology

• M.S., Michtom School of Computer Science, Brandeis University (transferred to SIT in 2019)

• B.A., Department of Computer Science, Boston University

Grants

• Co-PI: NSF POSE: Phase II: Building an Open-Source Ecosystem to Secure Software Bills of Materials

Award Amount: $1.5M

Award Period: 09/01/2024 - 08/31/2026 (Estimated)

Publication

1. Yunze Zhao, Yuchen Zhang✉, Dan Chacko, Justin Cappos, "CovSBOM: Enhancing Software Bill of Materials with Integrated Code Coverage Analysis". In Proceedings of the 35th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE 2024, AE Badges: Available Badge; Reviewed Badge) (✉ indicates the corresponding author) [Source Code][⧉DOI]

2. Yuchen Zhang, Ashish Kundu, Georgios Portokalidis, Jun Xu, "On the Dual Nature of Necessity in Use of Rust Unsafe Code". In Proceedings of the 31th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2023, Industry Track) [Source Code][⧉DOI]

3. Yuchen Zhang, Yunhang Zhang, Georgios Portokalidis, Jun Xu, "Towards Understanding the Runtime Performance of Rust". In Proceedings of the 37th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2022, Industry Track) [Source Code][⧉DOI]

4. Yuchen Zhang, Chengbin Pang, Georgios Portokalidis, Nikos Triandopoulos, Jun Xu, "Debloating Address Sanitizer".  In Proceedings of the 31st USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 2022, AE Badges: Artifacts Available; Artifacts Functional; Results Reproduced) [Source Code][Video]

5. Ruotong Yu, Francesca Del Nin, Yuchen Zhang, Shan Huang, Pallavi Kaliyar, Sarah Zakto, Mauro Conti, Georgios Portokalidis, Jun Xu, "Building Embedded Systems Like It’s 1996". In Proceedings of the 29th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2022) [Source Code][Video]

6. Ruotong Yu, Yuchen Zhang, Shan Huang, "An In-Depth Analysis on Adoption of Attack Mitigations in Embedded Devices". In Proceedings of the Learning from Authoritative Security Experiment Results (NDSS LASER Workshop 2022) [Abstract]

7. Yifan Wang*, Yuchen Zhang*, Chengbin Pang, Peng Li, Nikos Triandopoulos, Jun Xu, "Facilitating parallel fuzzing with mutually-exclusive task distribution". In Proceedings of the EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2021 (SecureComm 2021, Best Paper Award) (* indicates equal contribution) [Source Code] [Video]

Work Experience

• Security Engineer Intern @ TikTok, ByteDance, Mountain View, CA (2022), working with Dr. Peng Li.

• Software Development Engineer Intern @ Alexa Team, Amazon, Boston, MA (2019).

Professional Services

• [Computers & Security] Computers & Security, Invited Reviewer 2025

• [DSN] the 55th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, Program Committee 2025 

• [Scientific Reports] Scientific Reports, Invited Reviewer 2024

• [Computers & Security] Computers & Security, Invited Reviewer 2024

• [SCORED] ACM Workshop on Software Supply Chain Offensive Research and Ecosystem Defenses, PC Chair 2024

• [DSN] the 54th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, Program Committee 2024

• [ISSRE] the 34th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering, Sub-Reviewer 2023

• [USENIX] the 31st USENIX Security Symposium, Artifact Evaluation Committee 2022

Honors & Awards

• ACM SIGSOFT CAPS Award, ESEC/FSE Conference, Fall 2023

• Excellence in Graduate Research Award, Stevens Institute of Technology, May 2023

• ACM SIGSOFT CAPS Award, ASE Conference, Fall 2022

• Student Grant Award, USENIX Security, Summer 2022

• Best Paper Award, SecureComm, Fall 2021

• Provost's Doctoral Fellowship, Stevens Institute of Technology, Fall 2019

• Dean’s List, Boston University, Fall 2017

Teaching

• VIP-UY3000/VIP-GY5000: DTCC-Supply Chain Research, Fall 2024

• VIP-UY3000/VIP-GY5000: DTCC-Supply Chain Research, Spring 2024

• VIP-UY3000/VIP-GY5000: DTCC-Supply Chain Research, Fall 2023

• CS492: Operating Systems, Spring 2023

• CS576: Systems Security, Fall 2022

• CS576: Systems Security, Spring 2022

• CS492: Operating Systems, Spring 2021

• CS577: Reverse Engineering & Application Analysis, Fall 2020