Zhendong Su's Homepage

Zhendong Su
Professor and Chancellor's Fellow
Department of Computer Science
University of California, Davis
Ph.D. (2002) Computer Science
University of California, Berkeley

Office Hour: Tu/Th 10:30-11:30 AM and by appt., 3011 Kemper Hall

Spring 2013 Teaching: ECS 142 and ECS 240

Please submit your best work to TOSEM and OOPSLA 2013.

Research

My research interests span programming languages, software engineering, and computer security, focusing on developing methodologies, techniques and tools for improving software reliability & security and programming productivity.

Current Projects [Funded by NSF, LLNL, AFOSR, Intel, IBM] (needs update)

Automated debugging [ICSE'06, ASE'07]
Clone detection and similarity checking [ICSE'07, FSE'07]
Firewall modeling, analysis, and optimization [S&P'06, TNSM]
Malicious code detection, analysis, and prevention [CCS'05, ASPLOS'06, ACSAC'06]
Program analysis of numerical software [TACAS'04, TCS'05, ICSE'06]
Web and database application security and reliability [ICSE'04, SAVCBS'04, POPL'06, PLDI'07]

Selected Recent Publications [complete list | DBLP | Google Scholar] (needs update)

Synthesizing method sequences for high-coverage testing (OOPSLA'11)
Static detection of access control vulnerabilities (USENIX Security'11)
Scalable and precise detection of buggy inconsistencies (OOPSLA'10)
How unique is source code? (FSE'10)
Perturbing numerical computation to detect instabilities (ISSTA'10)
Dynamic detection of unsafe component loadings (ISSTA'10, Distinguished Paper Award)
Has the bug really been fixed? (ICSE'10)
Simultaneously learning and enforcing temporal properties (ICSE'10)
Static validation of CPP macros (ASE'09)
Client-side detection of XSS worms (ESORICS'09)
Detecting functionally equivalent program fragments (ISSTA'09)
Detecting clones in binary executables (ISSTA'09)
Simplifying programs for better testing and analysis (FSE'08)
Mining specifications using compositional rules (FSE'08)
Concolic testing of web applications (ISSTA'08)
Scalable detection of semantic clones (ICSE'08)
Symbolic mining of temporal specifications (ICSE'08)
Static detection of XSS vulnerabilities (ICSE'08)
Context-aware statistical debugging (ASE'07)
Context-based detection of clone-related bugs (FSE'07)
Static detection of SQL injection vulnerabilities (PLDI'07)
Deckard: a new clone detection tool (ICSE'07) [download]
Validity checking for automata over linear constraints (FSTTCS'06)
Temporal search for hidden malware analysis (ASPLOS'06)
Firewall rule validation (IEEE S&P'06) [download]
Hierarchical delta debugging (ICSE'06) [download]
Dimensional unit checking (ICSE'06)
Runtime detection of SQL injection attacks (POPL'06)
Analysis of polymorphic worm exploits (CCS'05)
Subtype satisfiability over posets (ESOP'05)
Static checking of database applications (ICSE'04, Distinguished Paper Award)
Integer range constraints (TACAS'04, invited paper for a TCS special issue)
More selected publications: POPL'02, POPL'00, PLDI'98, TACAS'98 (EAPLS Best Paper), ESOP'01, FoSSaCS'98

Professional Activities

Current Activities

Associate Editor: ACM TOSEM, 2008 -- present.
Founding Editorial Board: ICST Transactions on Security and Safety, 2009 -- present.

Member: ISSTA Steering Committee (2011 -- present)

Mentor: ICSE 2013 Mentoring Program.

PC Member: OOPSLA 2013, Indianapolis, IN, October 26-31, 2013.

Past Activities

PC Chair (past): SAS'09, ISSTA'12

PC Member (past):
         ICSE'12, PLDI'12, DBTest'12, POPL'12 (ERC), OOPSLA'11, ESEC/FSE'11, SAS'11,
         PLAS'10, ISSTA'10, FSE'10, SAS'10, PLDI'10, ICSE'10 (Research Track), ICSE'10 (DS),
         ISSTA'09, WWW'09, CC'09, ICSE'09, NDSS'09,
         APLAS'08, HASE'08, SecureComm'08, CATARS'08, TASE'08, ICSE'08, WWW'08, NDSS'08,
         ETX'07, APLAS'07, FSE'06, SAS'06, TACAS'06, RAMSS'05.

Lecturer: Oregon Summer School, Eugene, OR, July 18-27, 2007.

Mentor: ICSE 2011 Mentoring Program.

Reviewer (journals): TOPLAS, TSE, TOSEM, JFP, I&C, HOSC.

Reviewer (conferences): POPL, PLDI, ICSE, FSE, CAV, SAS, ICALP, RTA, INFOCOM, NDSS, ACSAC.

NSF Panelist: 2005, 2006, 2008, 2012

AFOSR Proposal Reviewer: 2007

Research Group [ for prospective students and visitors ]

I am working with the following outstanding researcher and graduate students:

Mehrdad Afshari (Ph.D. candidate, 2010 -- present)
Zhongxian Gu (Ph.D. candidate, 2008 -- present)
Dara Hazeghi (Ph.D. student, 2012 -- present)
Vu Minh Le (Ph.D. candidate, 2009 -- present)
Andreas Saebjoernsen (Ph.D. candidate, 2006 -- present)
Fangqi (Sophia) Sun (Ph.D. candidate, 2007 -- present)
Martin Velez (Ph.D. student, 2012 -- present)
Ke Wang (Ph.D. student, 2012 -- present)
Liang (Dennis) Xu (Ph.D. candidate, 2007 -- present)
Dr. Hao Zhong (visiting associate professor, 2012 -- present)

I am also working with the following excellent undergraduate students:

Alex Poms (2011 -- present)
Drew Schleck (2011 -- present)
Richard Yang (2011 -- present)
You Zhou (2012 -- present)

I am most proud of the awards and achievements of my students.

Former Group Members

Earl Barr (Postdoctoral Scholar, 2009-2012)
- Current employment: Lecturer, University College London
- Awards: I3P Fellow (2009-2010), UCD Outstanding Postdoc Finalist (2011-2012)
Taeho Kwon (Ph.D., 2011)
- Thesis title: Detecting and Analyzing Insecure Component Integration (December 2011)
- Current employment: Researcher, Ministry of National Defense, Korea
- Awards: ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (2010)
Thanh Vo (M.S., 2011)
- Thesis title: Automatic Detection of Floating-Point Exceptions (November 2011)
- Current employment: Sybase
Mark Gabel (Ph.D., 2011)
- Thesis title: Inferring Programmer Intent and Related Errors from Software (July 2011)
- Current employment: Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Dallas
- Awards: ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Dissertation Award (2012)
  Zuhair A. Munir Best Dissertation Award (2013)
Steven Hillman (B.S., 2010)
- Current employment: Cisco
Yuting Tim Xiao (B.S., 2010)
- Current employment: YouTube
Lingxiao Jiang (Ph.D., 2009)
- Thesis title: Scalable Detection of Similar Code: Techniques and Applications (Oct. 2009)
- Current employment: Assistant Professor, Singapore Management University
Jeffrey Yuen (M.S., 2009)

Current employment: Tata Consultancy Services

Gary Wassermann (Ph.D., 2008)
- Thesis title: Techniques and Tools for Engineering Secure Web Applications (Sept. 2008)
- Current employment: HP
Jed Crandall (Ph.D., 2007, co-advisor)
- Thesis title: Capturing and Analyzing Internet Worms (May 2007)
- Current employment: Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico
- Awards: NSF CAREER Award (2009)
Ghassan Misherghi (M.S., 2007)
- Thesis title: Hierarchical Delta Debugging (May 2007)
- Current employment: Google
Derrick Pallas (M.S., 2005, co-advisor)
- Current employment: Alexa Internet
Carl Gould (B.S., 2003; M.S. candidate, 2004)

Current employment: Inductive Automation
Awards: ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (2004)

Academic Visitors

Linfeng Liu (Ph.D. student from XJTU, China, 09/2011 -- 03/2013)
Qirun Zhang (Ph.D. student from CUHK, 10/2012 -- 12/2012)
You Li (Ph.D. student from NJU, China, 09/2011 -- 09/2012)
Dong Qiu (Ph.D. student from SEU, China, 09/2011 -- 09/2012)
Enyi Tang (Ph.D. student, Nanjing University, China, 09/2008 -- 09/2009)
Kyung-Goo Doh (Professor, Hanyang University, Korea, 02/2005-08/2006)
Stephane Glondu (ENS Cachan, France, 06/2005-08/2005)

last modified: 2013.03.29