Biography


I am an Assistant Professor of the Department of Computer Science at Wayne State University. Before that, I obtained my Ph.D. degree at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, supervised by Prof. Chunming Qiao and Prof. Lu Su.
My research interests lie in the broad areas of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), and Machine Learning (ML). The primary goal of my research is to build robust, secure, interpretable, and trustworthy AI-powered CPS and IoT systems for various applications such as autonomous driving, smart cities, and intelligent manufacturing.

Research


[CCS'25] Towards Real-Time Defense Against Object-Based LiDAR Attacks in Autonomous Driving

Yan Zhang, Zihao Liu, Yi Zhu, and Chenglin Miao.
2025 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security.

[CCS'25] Asymmetry Vulnerability and Physical Attacks on Online Map Construction for Autonomous Driving

Yang Lou, Haibo Hu, Qun Song, Qian Xu, Yi Zhu, Rui Tan, Wei-Bin Lee, and Jianping Wang.
2025 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security.

[MobiSys'25] Dynamic Defense against Adversarial Attacks on Car-Borne LiDAR-Based Object Detection

Yihan Xu, Dongfang Guo, Qun Song, Yang Lou, Yi Zhu, Jianping Wang, Chunming Qiao, and Rui Tan.
23rd ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services.

[BigData'24] Towards Robust mmWave-based Human Activity Recognition using Large Simulated Dataset for Model Pretraining

Vinay Joshi (Undergraduate Student), Shengkai Xu, Qiming Cao, Yi Zhu, Pu Wang, and Hongfei Xue.
2024 IEEE International Conference on Big Data.
[PDF]

[SenSys'24] An Online Defense against Object-Based LiDAR Attacks in Autonomous Driving

Yan Zhang*, Zihao Liu*, Chongliu Jia, Yi Zhu, Chenglin Miao.
The 22nd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems.
[Abstract] [PDF]

[USENIX Security'24] A First Physical-World Trajectory Prediction Attack via LiDAR-induced Deceptions in Autonomous Driving

Yang Lou*, Yi Zhu* (equal contribution), Qun Song*, Rui Tan, Chunming Qiao, Wei-Bin Lee, and Jianping Wang.
The 33rd USENIX Security Symposium.
[Abstract] [PDF] [Video]

[MobiCom'24] Malicious Attacks against Multi-Sensor Fusion in Autonomous Driving

Yi Zhu, Chenglin Miao, Hongfei Xue, Yunnan Yu, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao.
The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking.
[Abstract] [PDF]

[CCS'23] TileMask: A Passive-Reflection-based Attack against mmWave Radar Object Detection in Autonomous Driving

Yi Zhu, Chenglin Miao, Hongfei Xue, Zhengxiong Li, Yunnan Yu, Wenyao Xu, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao.
2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. (Accept Rate: 19.87%)
[Abstract] [PDF] [Video]

[NDSS'23] MetaWave: Attacking mmWave Sensing with Meta-material-enhanced Tags

Xingyu Chen, Zhengxiong Li, Baicheng Chen, Yi Zhu, Chris Xiaoxuan Lu, Zhengyu Peng, Feng Lin, Wenyao Xu, Kui Ren, and Chunming Qiao.
2023 Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium.
[Abstract] [PDF]

[SenSys'22] Towards Backdoor Attacks against LiDAR Object Detection in Autonomous Driving

Yan Zhang*, Yi Zhu* (equal contribution), Zihao Liu, Chenglin Miao, Foad Hajiaghajani, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao.
2022 ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems.
[Abstract] [PDF]

[AutoSec'22] Attacking LiDAR Semantic Segmentation in Autonomous Driving

Yi Zhu, Chenglin Miao, Foad Hajiaghajani, Mengdi Huai, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao.
2022 NDSS Workshop on Automotive & Autonomous Vehicle Security.
[PDF]

[AAAI Symp.] Addressing Vulnerability of Sensors for Autonomous Driving

Yi Zhu, Foad Hajiaghajani, Changzhi Li, Lu Su, Wenyao Xu, Zhi Sun, and Chunming Qiao.
AAAI 2022 Spring Symposium.
[PDF]

[SenSys'21] Adversarial Attacks against LiDAR Semantic Segmentation in Autonomous Driving

Yi Zhu, Chenglin Miao, Foad Hajiaghajani, Mengdi Huai, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao.
2021 ACM Conference on Embedded NetworkedSensor Systems. (Accept Rate: 17.9%)
[Abstract] [PDF] [Video]

[CCS'21] Can We Use Arbitrary Objects to Attack LiDAR Perception in Autonomous Driving?

Yi Zhu, Chenglin Miao, Tianhang Zheng, Foad Hajiaghajani, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao.
2021 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. (Accept Rate: 22.3%)
[Abstract] [PDF] [Video]

[TOSN] Driver Behavior-aware Parking Availability Crowdsensing System Using Truth Discovery

Yi Zhu, Abhishek Gupta, Shaohan Hu, Weida Zhong, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao.
ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Honors and Rewards


  • 2024-2025, Best Thesis Award, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York
  • 2018-2022, Presidential Fellowships, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York
  • 2020-2021, Best Graduate Research Award, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York

Teaching Experiences

Instructor at WSU

  • Fall 2025, Introduction to Machine Learning and Applications
  • Spring 2025, Computer Systems Security
  • Fall 2024, Secure Machine Learning

Teaching Assistant

  • Spring 2021, Modern Network Concepts
  • Fall 2020, Introduction to Data Mining
  • Fall 2020, Data Mining and Bioinformatics
  • Spring 2020, Computer Organization
  • Fall 2019, Introduction to Programming for Engineers
  • Spring 2019, Electrical Engineering Concepts for Non-Majors
  • Fall 2018, Real-Time and Embedded Operating Systems

Professional Service

Journal Reviewer

  • ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN)
  • IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
  • IEEE Internet of Things
  • ACM Transactions on Internet of Things
  • IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
  • Conference External Reviewer

  • ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom) 2020-2024
  • IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) 2021-2024
  • ACM Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc) 2021
  • IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) 2022
  • ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys) 2025
  • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2025
  • Program Committee

  • ACM SenSys+BuildSys Workshop on Data: Acquisition to Analysis 2022
  • IEEE International Conference on Mobility: Operations, Services, and Technologies (MOST) 2025
  • IEEE Conference on Dependable and Secure Computing (DSC) 2025
  • EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems and Smart Vehicles (SmartSP) 2025