penggao

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 | Awards | Services

About Me

I am an assistant professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher in Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley (with Prof. Dawn Song). I received my Ph.D. and M.A. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University (with Prof. Prateek Mittal, Prof. Sanjeev R. Kulkarni). I received my B.Eng. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

I am broadly interested in security and privacy, systems and networking, and AI. My research mainly focuses on creating scalable, intelligent, secure, and trustworthy systems and technologies to solve real-world security and privacy challenges. The following are some topics that my lab currently focuses on:

Cyber attack (e.g., APTs) prevention, detection, investigation, and response and recovery; cyber threat intelligence
Security for future network architectures and designs (e.g., in-network computing, programmable in-network security with P4 switches); zero trust architecture
AI for security (e.g., LLMs for security); trustworthy AI (e.g., ML robustness/privacy/explainability)

Postdoc position available: My colleague, Prof. Bo Ji, and I are seeking a talented individual to fill a postdoc position at Virginia Tech’s Computer Science Department. The candidate will collaborate with us on cutting-edge research in programmable switch (P4)-enabled network security. This role promises a competitive salary, comprehensive health insurance, and many other benefits. The postdoc will have the unique opportunity to work alongside brilliant Ph.D. students from both of our groups, fostering a collaborative and innovative research environment. Candidates who are interested in this position are encouraged to contact me.

Prospective students: I am looking to recruit self-motivated Ph.D. students, as well as M.S. and undergraduate students, to join my lab and work on exciting projects in system/network security and LLMs for security. If you are interested in working with me, please email your CV and transcript to penggao.jobs [at] gmail [dot] com. For Ph.D. applicants, please note that priority will be given to those with whom we have prior collaborations. Therefore, if you are interested in joining us, I encourage you to reach out early so we can explore potential initial collaborations.

Education & Experience

2013-2019: Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
2013-2015: M.A. in Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
2009-2013: B.Eng. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
01/2012-05/2012: Exchange student at the University of Hong Kong

06/2019-04/2021: Postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley
01/2019-06/2019: Visiting student researcher at the University of California, Berkeley
06/2018-09/2018: Research intern at Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing
06/2017-09/2017: Software engineering intern at Facebook, Menlo Park
10/2016-12/2016: Research intern at NEC Laboratories America, Princeton
11/2015-01/2016: Research intern at NEC Laboratories America, Princeton
06/2015-09/2015: Research intern at Microsoft Research, Redmond

Lab News

09/2024: Award Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber received the 2024 Davenport Leadership Fellowship. Congratulations to Osama!
09/2024: Award Ph.D. student Yutong Cheng received the 2024 Bitshares Fellowship. Congratulations to Yutong!
09/2024: Other Dr. Peng Gao was invited to the FTC roundtable session at the 2024 SaTC PI Meeting to present our P4Control work.
08/2024: Paper Our paper "Madeline: Continuous and Low-cost Monitoring with Graph-free Representations to Combat Cyber Threats" was accepted to ACSAC 2024.
08/2024: Paper Our paper "ThreatKG: An AI-Powered System for Automated Open-Source Cyber Threat Intelligence Gathering and Management" was accepted to LAMPS 2024.
07/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of AsiaCCS 2025.
07/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of Euro S&P 2025.
06/2024: Paper Our paper "vFix: Facilitating Software Maintenance of Smart Contracts via Automatically Fixing Vulnerabilities" was accepted to ICSME 2024.
05/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of NDSS 2025.
05/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of LAMPS 2024.
05/2024: Conference Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber attended the 45th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P).
04/2024: Award VT undergraduate student Sriram Narlapati received the 2024 Fincantieri Scholarship to undertake a summer internship in our lab. Congratulations to Sriram!
04/2024: Award Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber received the highly-competitive IEEE S&P 2024 Student Travel Grant. Only two VT students were selected. Congratulations to Osama!
04/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of PETS 2025.
04/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of IEEE S&P 2025.
04/2024: Award Ph.D. students Yutong Cheng and Osama Bajaber received the 2024 CCI SWVA Cyber Innovation Scholarship. Congratulations to Yutong and Osama!
03/2024: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) support for the 2024 Multicultural Academic Opportunities Program (MAOP) Summer Research Internship program (Sole PI).
03/2024: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2024 Virginia Tech Proof-of-Concept Grant (PI).
03/2024: Service Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber will serve on the Poster Program Committee of IEEE S&P 2024. Congratulations to Osama!
03/2024: Paper Our paper "P4Control: Line-Rate Cross-Host Attack Prevention via In-Network Information Flow Control Enabled by Programmable Switches and eBPF" was accepted to IEEE S&P (Oakland) 2024.
03/2024: Paper Our paper "An Analysis of Recent Advances in Deepfake Image Detection in an Evolving Threat Landscape" was accepted to IEEE S&P (Oakland) 2024.
03/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will co-organize the 1st DMV Security Workshop.
02/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of ACSAC 2024.
01/2024: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of DLSP 2024.
12/2023: Conference Ph.D. student Jianan Nie attended the 37th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).
12/2023: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of ACM CCS 2024.
10/2023: Service Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber will serve on the Program Committee of ICICS 2024. Congratulations to Osama!
08/2023: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Cybersecurity Research Award (Co-PI).
08/2023: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of Euro S&P 2024.
08/2023: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Innovation: Ideation to Commercialization Award (PI).
07/2023: Award Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber received the 2023 Bitshares Fellowship. Congratulations to Osama!
06/2023: Paper Our paper "PrivMon: A Stream-Based System for Real-Time Privacy Attack Detection for Machine Learning Models" was accepted to RAID 2023.
06/2023: Service Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber will serve on the Artifact Evaluation Committee of NDSS 2024. Congratulations to Osama!
05/2023: Conference Ph.D. students Osama Bajaber and Jianan Nie attended the 44th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P).
05/2023: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Research Engagement Award (PI).
04/2023: Award Ph.D. student Jianan Nie received the highly-competitive IEEE S&P 2023 Student Travel Grant. Only two VT students were selected. Congratulations to Jianan!
03/2023: Service Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber will serve on the Poster Program Committee of IEEE S&P 2023. Congratulations to Osama!
03/2023: Award Ph.D. students Osama Bajaber and Jianan Nie received the 2023 CCI SWVA Cyber Innovation Scholarship. Congratulations to Osama and Jianan!
02/2023: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2023 4-VA Collaborative Research Award for Pre-Tenure Faculty (Sole PI).
12/2022: Service Dr. Peng Gao will serve on the Technical Program Committee of ACM CCS 2023.
11/2022: Conference Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber attended the 30th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP).
10/2022: Award Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber received the IEEE ICNP 2022 Travel Grant. Congratulations to Osama!
08/2022: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2022 Amazon - Virginia Tech Initiative Faculty Research Award (PI).
08/2022: Conference Ph.D. student Osama Bajaber attended the 31st USENIX Security Symposium.
01/2022: Paper Our paper "A Knowledge Base Question Answering System for Cyber Threat Knowledge Acquisition" was accepted to ICDE 2022 Demonstrations Track.
12/2021: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021-22 VT New Faculty Mentoring Grant (Sole PI).
11/2021: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 4-VA Collaborative Research Award (PI).
10/2021: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Cybersecurity Research Collaboration Award (PI).
10/2021: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 Cisco Research Award (Sole PI).
10/2021: Paper Our paper "PrivGuard: Privacy Regulation Compliance Made Easier" was accepted to USENIX Security 2022.
08/2021: Paper Our paper "Back-Propagating System Dependency Impact for Attack Investigation" was accepted to USENIX Security 2022.
07/2021: Funding Dr. Peng Gao received the 2021 Google Cloud Research Credits Award (Sole PI).
05/2021: Paper Our paper "Make Web3.0 Connected" was accepted to IEEE TDSC.