Yan Xiao

Yan Xiao is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois. His research focuses on federated learning, cybersecurity, and distributed systems, with an emphasis on adversarial robustness, privacy-preserving techniques, and optimization in machine learning frameworks. He has contributed to foundational tools like FedML and explores challenges in federated learning security, energy efficiency, and causal mechanisms.

Key research interests include federated learning architectures, adversarial defense mechanisms, and the integration of reinforcement learning for automated feature selection. His work spans theoretical advancements (e.g., invariant aggregators for backdoor attacks) and practical applications (e.g., thermal management in HPC systems).

Recent publications highlight trends in federated learning security, distributed optimization, and causal discovery. Notable contributions address straggler-free coreset-based learning and Bayesian-optimized energy efficiency in federated setups.

No scientific awards or grants are explicitly mentioned in the provided texts. Advising details are not listed, though collaborations with research groups in federated learning and HPC are implied through publication topics.