Zhihao Yao

Zhihao Yao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). His research focuses on secure systems design, mobile security, and hardware-software co-design for trustworthy computing. He holds a Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. in Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine (2023, 2020, 2017 respectively).

His work emphasizes minimizing trust in computing systems through physically isolated hardware, secure code generation, and privacy-preserving technologies. Notable contributions include developing frameworks like Hora for life-critical smartphone applications, Casper for LLM privacy protection, and ProvCam for verifiable video capture systems. He received the 2023 Best Artifact Award at ACM MobiSys for impactful research contributions.

• Education:
  • Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of California-Irvine (2023)
  • M.S. in Computer Science, University of California-Irvine (2020)
  • B.S. in Computer Science, University of California-Irvine (2017)

Recent work explores fuzzer-assisted security testing for WebGL, real-time anomaly detection in energy systems, and minimizing trusted computing bases (TCBs) in mobile devices. His research bridges theoretical security principles with practical implementations across hardware, operating systems, and application layers.

• Awards:
  • 2023 Best Artifact Award, ACM MobiSys

Teaching includes advanced courses on operating systems principles. His lab develops novel solutions for securing modern computing environments through interdisciplinary approaches.