Peng Gao

Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech

Office: 620 Drillfield Drive, Torgersen Hall - Suite 1140, Computer Science, Blacksburg, VA 24061

E-mail: penggao [at] vt [dot] edu

Follow @penggaotweets

Research Interests

I am broadly interested in security, privacy, systems, and AI. My research focuses on creating scalable, intelligent, secure, and trustworthy systems to solve real-world security and privacy challenges. My research draws on techniques from machine learning, natural language processing, databases, and program analysis. The following are some representative topics that my research group currently focuses on:

• Advanced cyber threat protection for computing systems (e.g., attack prevention/detection/investigation, threat hunting, incidence response)
• Cyber threat intelligence (e.g., intelligence gathering/management/quality control, CTI-enhanced defenses)
• Software-defined programmable network security (e.g., P4 switch, SDN, NFV, NextG)
• Trustworthy AI & AI for cybersecurity (e.g., robustness/privacy/explainability of LLMs and GNNs; LLMs for cybersecurity)
• Decentralized systems and technologies (e.g., blockchain)

Openings: I am looking for self-motivated Ph.D. students, postdocs, M.S. students, visiting student researchers, and interns, with a good background on security/systems/AI related areas. If you're interested in working with me, please send an email to penggao.jobs [at] gmail [dot] com and attach your CV and transcript.

Recent Lab News

• August 2023: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Cybersecurity Research Award (Co-PI).
• August 2023: [Service] Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of Euro S&P 2024.
• August 2023: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Innovation: Ideation to Commercialization Award (PI).
• July 2023: [Award] Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber received the 2023 Bitshares Fellowship. Congratulations to Osama!
• June 2023: [Paper] Our paper "PrivMon: A Stream-Based System for Real-Time Privacy Attack Detection for Machine Learning Models" was accepted to RAID 2023. Congratulations to Zhengjie!
• June 2023: [Service] Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber will serve on the Artifact Evaluation Committee of NDSS 2024. Congratulations to Osama!
• May 2023: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Research Engagement Award (PI).
• April 2023: [Award] Ph.D. student Zhengjie Ji received the 2023 Bitshares Fellowship. Congratulations to Zhengjie!
• April 2023: [Award] Ph.D. student Jianan Nie received the IEEE S&P 2023 Student Travel Grant. Congratulations to Jianan!
• March 2023: [Service] Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber will serve on the Poster Program Committee of IEEE S&P 2023. Congratulations to Osama!
• March 2023: [Award] Ph.D. students Osama Bajaber, Zhengjie Ji, and Jianan Nie received the 2023 CCI SWVA Cyber Innovation Scholarship. Congratulations to Osama, Zhengjie, and Jianan!
• February 2023: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 4-VA Collaborative Research Award for Pre-Tenure Faculty (Sole PI).
• December 2022: [Service] Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of ACM CCS 2023.
• October 2022: [Award] Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber received the IEEE ICNP 2022 Travel Grant. Congratulations to Osama!
• August 2022: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2022 Amazon - Virginia Tech Initiative Faculty Research Award (PI).
• June 2022: [Award] My visiting student Xinyu Yang received the 2022 Black Hat USA Student Scholarship. Congratulations to Xinyu!
• January 2022: [Paper] Our paper "A Knowledge Base Question Answering System for Cyber Threat Knowledge Acquisition" was accepted to ICDE 2022 Demonstrations Track. Congratulations to Zhengjie!
• December 2021: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021-22 VT New Faculty Mentoring Grant (Sole PI).
• November 2021: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 4-VA Collaborative Research Award (PI).
• October 2021: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Cybersecurity Research Collaboration Award (PI).
• October 2021: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 Cisco Research Award (Sole PI).
• October 2021: [Paper] Our paper "PrivGuard: Privacy Regulation Compliance Made Easier" was accepted to USENIX Security 2022.
• August 2021: [Paper] Our paper "Back-Propagating System Dependency Impact for Attack Investigation" was accepted to USENIX Security 2022.
• July 2021: [Funding] Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 Google Cloud Research Credits Award (Sole PI).
• May 2021: [Paper] Our paper "Make Web3.0 Connected" was accepted to IEEE TDSC 2021.