Peng Gao
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech
Office: Gilbert Place 4104
E-mail: penggao [at] vt [dot] edu
Follow @penggaotweets
Bio | 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, AI for Science
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
- Amazon Research Award, 2026
- 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, 2021
- 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.
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