I am currently the Collegiate (Endowed Chair) Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and the Associate Director of Applied Analytics in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society at the University of Notre Dame. Before joining Notre Dame, I was the Theodore L. and Dana J. Schroeder Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Data Sciences (CDS) at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). My research areas mainly include Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Mining, Cybersecurity, and Pulic Health. By harnessing large-scale, multi-source, multi-modality data, I and my group discover new research problems, tackle fundamental challenges in machine learning (especially graph learning), and deploy our developed techniques into real-world applications with broader impacts. More specifically, we strive to advance knowledge and science in graph (and mutlimodal) learning, bridge AI/ML and cybersecurity concentrating on large-scale malware detection, AI security, and study of the evolving underground ecosystem, and develop AI and data-driven techniques to combat the opioid crisis and infectious disease outbreaks. With long-term collaboration with industry partners and by working with my team, I have advanced AI-driven innovations for cybersecurity, especially in the fields of large-scale malware detection and adversarial machine learning. My proposed and developed techniques have significantly reduced the time needed to detect new malicious software - from weeks to seconds, which have been incorporated into popular commercial cybersecurity products including Comodo and Kingsoft Antivirus that protect millions of users worldwide. By collaborating with various partners including healthcare professionals and law enforcement, I have conducted extensive research on combating the opioid crisis and infectious disease outbreaks, which has generated significant societal impacts. I have had over 130 publications in my fields (e.g., ACM CSUR, IEEE TNNLS, IEEE TKDE, SIGKDD, ICDM, CIKM, WWW, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, AAAI, IJCAI, USENIX Security, ACSAC). By working with my team, I have received nine best paper awards, including the AAAI-DCAA 2023 Best Paper Runner-Up Award, the ACM CIKM 2021 Best Paper Award (Full Paper Track), the ACM CIKM 2021 Best Paper Runner-Up Award (Applied Paper Track), the AICS 2019 Challenge Problem Winner, the SIGKDD 2017 Best Paper Award and SIGKDD 2017 Best Student Paper Award (Applied Data Science Track), and the IEEE EISIC 2017 Best Paper Award. I have also received the Innovation Award (2020-2021) and the Research Award (2019-2020) at CWRU, the MetroLab Innovation of the Month (2020), the NSF Career Award (2019), the IJCAI Early Career Spotlight (2019), the ICDM 2018 Outstanding Service Award, and the New Researcher of the Year Award (2016-2017) at WVU. As the Lead/Sole PI, I have received multiple awards from the NSF and DoJ/NIJ in support of our research. All these awards are highly competitive.

I have moved to the University of Notre Dame as the Collegiate Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the CSE Department. I am holding an adjunct position in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) at West Virginia University (WVU). Please refer to our website for details of our work.

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Position Openings: To Perspective Students and Postdocs

• I am currently looking for multiple Ph.D. students and Postdocs doing supervised research or independent study with me in the CSE department at Notre Dame. If you are a well motivated and dedicated student pursuing a Ph.D. degree or postdoc related to the areas of AI/ML, Data Mining, Cybersecurity, and Public Health, please send me an email with your CV. Also, please refer to our website for details of our research work.
  
  The postdocs will be provided competitive packages and the Ph.D. students will be provided research assistantships which cover the full cost of tuition and offer the full year (12 month/year) stipend and benefits. I will work with each postdoc or student to identify the most suitable topic based on his/her academic interests and background. I will also help each postdoc or student to build his/her strong capability and publication record as well as the career development with a good timing. I very much enjoy working with each member in my group and take each postdoc or student as a friend and a collaborator. Doing research is to build an enjoyable career and have fun.
  
  My expectations on perspective Ph.D. students are: (1) honest, diligent, intelligent, and easy-going personality; (2) strong research potential, programming capability, mathematical background; and (3) dedicated to research and willing to publish in prestigious forums. The minimum requirements for Ph.D. students are: B.S. in Computer Science (applicants with a master degree will be preferred), or related fields, and other general admission requirements.