Yu Feng

Yu Feng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), affiliated with the College of Engineering. He is also the founder of Nubit, a research group exploring blockchain technology. His research focuses on automated programming techniques combining program synthesis and analysis to enhance software security, reliability, and usability. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UT Austin (2018), an M.S. from Beihang University (China), and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Central South University (China).

Key research areas include programming languages, program analysis/verification, program synthesis, and security. His work emphasizes building automated tools for sound, precise, and scalable system behavior guarantees, with applications in mobile systems, blockchain, and smart contracts. Notable contributions include systems for vulnerability detection (e.g., FSE'14, CCS'17), program synthesis frameworks (PLDI'17, POPL'17), and security analysis of zero-knowledge proofs.

He has received awards such as the Ethereum Academic Award (2023-2024), Google Faculty Award, and NSF grants. His grants include DARPA HARDEN (2022-2025) and NSF-SaTC (2019-2022). He actively mentors students and collaborates on projects like Falx (visualization authoring) and Trinity (data science synthesis). His service includes PC roles at CCS, PLDI, and ICSE.