Peng Gao
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech
Office: Gilbert Place 4104
E-mail: penggao [at] vt [dot] edu
Follow @penggaotweets
Publications | Lab | Teaching | Services
I am an assistant professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in Computer Science at UC Berkeley (with Dawn Song). I received my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University (with Prateek Mittal, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni). I received my B.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Research Interests
Systems Security, Network Security, (Agentic) AI for Cybersecurity, AI Safety and Security
Education & Experience
- Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (M.A. en route), Princeton University, 2013-2019
- B.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 2009-2013
- Exchange Student, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Spring 2012
- Postdoctoral Scholar, EECS Department, UC Berkeley, 06/2019-04/2021
- Visiting Student Researcher, EECS Department, UC Berkeley, 01/2019-06/2019
- Research Intern, Microsoft Research Asia, 06/2018-09/2018
- Research Intern, Facebook (Meta), 06/2017-09/2017
- Research Intern, NEC Laboratories America, 10/2016-12/2016
- Research intern, NEC Laboratories America, 11/2015-01/2016
- Research intern, Microsoft Research Redmond, 06/2015-09/2015
Selected Awards
- Google Academic Research Award, 2025
- National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, 2025
- IEEE Senior Member, 2025
- Amazon-VT Initiative Faculty Research Award, 2022
- Meta Research Award Finalist, 2021
- Cisco Research Award, 2021
- Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Faculty Fellow, 2021
- Google Cloud Research Credits Award, 2021
- Amazon Research Award, 2020
- Microsoft Security AI Research Award, 2020
- CSAW Best Applied Security Paper Award Finalist, 2018
- Princeton University Fellowship in Natural Sciences and Engineering, 2013
- Shanghai Excellent Graduate, 2013
- Li & Fung Scholarship, 2012
- China National Scholarship, 2010, 2011
- SJTU Academic Excellence Scholarship, 2010, 2012
Prospective students: I am seeking highly motivated Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers to join my lab. If you’re interested, please email your CV and transcript to penggao.jobs [at] gmail [dot] com. In your message, please include a brief statement explaining your understanding of our research topics and relevant publications. While I may not be able to respond to every message due to the volume of inquiries, I genuinely appreciate your interest.