معرفی
Danfeng Zhang is a faculty member at Duke University whose research sits at the intersection of programming languages and security. Active across the premier PL conferences since 2015, Zhang has served on more than two-dozen program committees and currently co-chairs the POPL Student Research Competition.
Education & Affiliation:
- Home page: users.cs.duke.edu/~dz132
- Affiliation: Duke University, United States
Research Interests:
Zhang’s work spans programming-language design, static and dynamic analysis, formal verification, and security. A recurring theme is developing language-based techniques that guarantee strong security and privacy properties—ranging from side-channel resistance and constant-time execution to differential-privacy proofs—while preserving performance and usability. His recent projects combine type systems, program logics, and automated reasoning to build practical verification tools for concurrent, speculative, and approximate software.
Publication Trends:
Across nine representative papers (2015-2024) Zhang has advanced static detection of cache side channels, automated proofs of differential privacy, and relaxed concurrency models. The trajectory shows deepening integration of security concerns into language infrastructure, with tool-building (CtChecker, SpecSafe, LightDP) that bridge formal guarantees and real-world systems.
Service & Leadership:
- 2024 POPL Student Research Competition Co-Chair
- 2025 POPL Program Committee member
- Repeated reviewer/PC member: PLDI, SPLASH/OOPSLA, ISSTA, ECOOP, APLAS, PriSC, PASS
Zhang regularly mentors student researchers through SRC sessions and workshop panels, fostering diversity and early-career participation in the programming-languages community.
