Zhihao "Zephyr" Yao

Assistant Professor
Computer Science Department
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Email: zhihao.yao[at]njit.edu
Office: GITC 4317A

prof_pic.jpeg

I joined the Computer Science Department at NJIT in September 2023. I received my B.S. cum laude, M.S. and Ph.D. from UC Irvine.

My group (Redoubt Lab) builds practical solutions to real-world challenges in mobile and cloud computing. Our research spans the areas of operating systems, mobile computing, security and privacy. Specifically, we study the security and privacy implications of emerging technologies such as mobile apps, I/O devices, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things. We build systems to address these challenges, and evaluate them in real-world settings.

news

Aug 14, 2025 Featured in IEEE Computer Society Tech News
Aug 2, 2025 Catamaran is accepted to IEEE SecDev’25. Congrats Chenxi and Michael!
May 20, 2025 Congrats, Jacob, for successfully defending his Master’s thesis on Python ecosystem study.
Mar 27, 2025 Invited to serve on the TPC of NDSS’26
Mar 18, 2025 Our proposal to NJIT Grace Hopper AI Research Institute seed grant program has been funded.
Feb 24, 2025 Recognized one of the 🏆IEEE Computer Society Top 30 Early Career Professionals.
Oct 20, 2024 Our work on formal trust modeling is accepted to WAITI’24.
Aug 2, 2024 Invited to serve on the TPC of IEEE EuroS&P’25.
Jul 1, 2024 Hora is accepted to ACM APSys’24.
May 28, 2024 Invited to serve on the TPC of NDSS’25
May 7, 2024 Congrats, Chenxi, for securing HotMobile’24 and MobiSys’24 travel grants!
Apr 19, 2024 StreamGuard is accepted to ACM MobiSys’24 Poster.
Apr 16, 2024 Received FPGA donations from AMD University Program.
Mar 13, 2024 Received API credits from OpenAI Researcher Access Program.
Dec 22, 2023 Invited to serve on the TPC of ACM CCS’24.
Nov 21, 2023 ProvCam is accepted to ACM MobiCom’24.
Jun 21, 2023 Received 🏆Best Artifact Award from ACM MobiSys’23.
Feb 27, 2023 Our work on split-trust hardware and OctopOS is accepted to ACM MobiSys’23.

selected publications

  1. provcam_preview.png
    ProvCam: A Camera Module with Self-Contained TCB for Producing Verifiable Videos
    Yuxin Liu, Zhihao Yao, Mingyi Chen, and 3 more authors
    In Proc. ACM MobiCom, 2024
    HTML PDF Software Hardware
  2. octopos_preview.jpg
    Minimizing a Smartphone’s TCB for Security-Critical Programs with Exclusively-Used, Physically-Isolated, Statically-Partitioned Hardware
    Zhihao Yao, Seyed Mohammadjavad Seyed Talebi, Mingyi Chen, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. ACM MobiSys, 2023 🏆Best Artifact Award
    HTML PDF Artifact Archive Technical Manual Software Hardware
  3. gleefuzz_preview.jpg
    GLeeFuzz: Fuzzing WebGL Through Error Message Guided Mutation
    Hui Peng, Zhihao Yao, Ardalan Amiri Sani, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. USENIX Security Symposium, 2023
    HTML PDF Code Slides
  4. hecaton_preview.jpg
    Undo Workarounds for Kernel Bugs
    Seyed Mohammadjavad Seyed Talebi, Zhihao Yao, Ardalan Amiri Sani, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. USENIX Security Symposium, 2021
    HTML PDF Code Slides
  5. sugar_thumbnail.jpg
    Sugar: Secure GPU Acceleration in Web Browsers
    Zhihao Yao, Zongheng Ma, Yingtong Liu, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. ACM ASPLOS, 2018
    HTML PDF Supp Code Slides
  6. milkomeda_preview.jpg
    Milkomeda: Safeguarding the Mobile GPU Interface Using WebGL Security Checks
    Zhihao Yao, Saeed Mirzamohammadi, Ardalan Amiri Sani, and 1 more author
    In Proc. ACM CCS, 2018
    HTML PDF Blog Code