To Perspective Students and Postdocs

  • Yes-Lab, led by Prof. Yanfang (Fanny) Ye at the University of Notre Dame, is a team consisting of faculty, postdocs and students with research focusing on AI/ML, data mining, cybersecurity, and public health. We very much enjoy developing novel yet elegant techniques to solve real-world problems that generate broader impacts. By harnessing large-scale, multi-source, multi-modality data, we discover new research problems, propose novel machine learning (especially deep graph learning) models, and develop advanced AI techniques for real-world driven applications in cybersecurity and public health. More specifically, we strive to advance knowledge and science in graph (and multimodal) 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. Integrating humanity and technology, our long-term goal of research is to advance capabilities and trustworthiness of AI to provide state-of-the-art innovations i) to secure cyberspace for its users, and ii) to improve health and well-being of people around the world. Please refer to our research webpage for details of our works.

  • I am currently looking for multiple Ph.D. students and Postdocs doing supervised research or independent study with me in the CSE department at the University of 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. I aim to recruit 1 postdoc and 4 Ph.D. students for Fall 2024 (until filled).

    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.

My Students and Postdocs

  • Current Students and Postdocs

     Shifu Hou (Postdoc, Fall 2022 -- )
     Research Area: AI/ML, Data Mining, Cybersecurity

     Yiyue Qian (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2019 -- Spring 2024)
     Research Area: AI/ML, Cybersecurity, Public Health
     Employment: Applied Scientist, Amazon, Seattle WA.

     Mingxuan Ju (Ph.D. Student, Summer 2020 -- 2024)
     Research Area: AI/ML, Data Mining
     WWW 2021 Best Paper Award Shortlist
     Employment: Research Scientist, Snapchat, Seattle WA.

     Hadeel Almaimani (Ph.D. Student, Spring 2020 -- )
     Research Area: Cybersecurity, Data Mining

     Qianlong Wen (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2020 -- )
     Research Area: Machine Learning, Public Health
     SIGKDD Best Paper Award Shortlist (Research Track)
     Summer Intern: Amazon, Seattle WA, 2023-2024.

     Zhongyu Ouyang (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2021 -- )
     Research Area: AI/ML, Data Mining
     Summer Intern: Microsoft, Seattle WA, 2024.

     Tianyi Ma (Ph.D. Student, Summer 2022 -- )
     Research Area: Machine Learning, Public Health

     Shang Ma (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2022 -- )
     Research Area: Cybersecurity, Machine Learning

     Chaoran Chen (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2022 -- )
     Co-advisor: Prof. Toby Li
     Research Area: Cybersecurity, Human-Computer Interaction

     Zheyuan Zhang (Ph.D. Student, Summer 2023 -- )
     Research Area: AI/ML, Public Health

     Zehong Wang (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2023 -- )
     Research Area: AI/ML, Data Mining

     Jasmine White (REU, Fall 2023 -- )
     Research Area: Data Mining, Public Health

     Evan Hall (REU, Fall 2023 -- )
     Research Area: AI/ML, Cybersecurity

     Landon Bachman (REU, Fall 2023 -- )
     Research Area: AI/ML, Public Health

  • Graduated Students and Postdocs

     Fangtian Zhong (Postdoc, Summer 2022 -- Spring 2023)
     Research Area: Software Security, Program Analysis, Machine Learning
    Current Employment: Assistant Professor (TT), University of Central Missouri, Fall 2023-.

     Jianfei Zhang (Postdoc, Fall 2019 -- Fall 2020)
     Research Area:Data Mining, Machine Learning, Public Health
     CIKM 2021 Best Paper Award (Full Paper Track)
     Current Employment: Research Associate, University of Sherbrooke, Canada, Summer 2022-.
     Previous Employment: Research Associate, University of Alberta, Canada, Spring 2021-Spring 2022.

     Yiming Zhang (Ph.D., December 2022; MS, December 2018)
     Research Area: AI/ML, Cybersecurity, Public Health
     Ph.D. Dissertation: Heterogeneous Graph Learning Techniques for Combating Opioid Epidemic and Online Trafficking
     MS Thesis: Using Social Media to Combat Opioid Epidemic
     Current Employment: Research Scientist, Singapore Management University, Spring 2023-.

     Shifu Hou (Ph.D., June 2022; MS, June 2019)
     Research Area: Machine Learning, Data Mining, Software Security
     SIGKDD 2017 Best Paper Award and  Best Student Paper Award (ADS Track)
     Ph.D. Dissertation: AI-driven Techniques for Malware and Malicious Code Detection
     MS Thesis: Automatic Detection of Insecure Code Snippets in Stack Overflow
     Current Employment: Postdoc, University of Notre Dame, Fall 2022-.

     Yujie Fan (Ph.D., May 2022)
     Research Area: Machine Learning, Data Mining, Cybersecurity
     Ph.D. Dissertation: Heterogeneous Graph Representation Learning: Techniques and Applications
     Current Employment: Research Scientist, Visa Research, Palo Alto, US, Summer 2022-.

     Lingwei Chen (Ph.D., May 2019)
     Research Area: Machine Learning, Data Mining, Cybersecurity
     IEEE EISIC 2017 Best Paper Award
     Ph.D. Dissertation: Enhancing Security of Machine Learning-based Malware Detection at Feature & Model Levels
     Current Employment: Assistant Professor (TT), Wright State University, Summer 2021-.

     Qian Peng (Master, April 2022)
     Research Area: Machine Learning, Cybersecurity
     MS Thesis: Heterogeneous Graph Neural Network for Key Player Identification in Underground Forums
     Current Employment: Software Engineer, China Intl. Capital Corp., Beijing, Summer 2022-.

     Shiyu Sun (Master, June 2021)
     Research Area: Data Mining, Public Health
     Current Employment: PhD Student (GRA), George Mason University, Fall 2021-.

     Jian Liu (Master, June 2018 )
     Research Area: Cybersecurity, Machine Learning
     MS Thesis: Automatic Detection of Cybercrime-suspected Threads in Online Underground Forums
     Current Employment: PhD Student (GRA), University of South Carolina, Fall 2018-.

    •  Sai Ram Nellutla (Master, December 2015)
     Research Area: Data Mining, Mobile Security
     MS Thesis: A Safety Support System for Children's Anti-loss
     Current Employment: Software Engineer, M*Modal, Pittsburgh, PA

     MRishitha Reddy Tumma (MS, March 2018)

     Madhusudhan Reddy Boddu (MS, March 2017)
     Current Employment: MongoDB Developer, Amazon, Silicon Valley

     Sai Venkata Akhil Thammineni (MS, November 2017)

     Srinivas Garapati (MS, October 2017)

     Utsav Kirtikumar Upadhyay (MS, September 2017)

      Sherry Zhu (REU, BS, May 2023)
      Current Employment: Software Engineer at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

      Carter Flayhart (REU, BS, May 2023)
      Current Employment: Allen Memorial Medical Library

      Daniel Chen (REU, BS, May 2022)
      Current Employment: Applied Math Ph.D. student at Brown University

      Yonghao Zhou (REU, BS, May 2022)

      Alex Finkelstein (BS, May 2015)

     Dominique Amos (BS, December 2015)

     Joshua Suess (BS, May 2015)

     Kevin Hao (BS, May 2015)

     Michael Hite (BS, May 2015)

     Jacob Sutton (BS, May 2015)

     Sam Wood (BS, May 2015)

     Reem AL Alshikh (BS, May 2015)

     Zainab Alamri (BS, May 2015)

  • Former Students

     Jianan Zhao (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2020 -- Summer 2022)
     Research Area: Data Mining, Machine Learning

     Aaron Saas (Ph.D. Student, Fall 2016 -- Summer 2019)
     Research Area: Mobile Security, Data Mining

     Madhuri Siddula (Ph.D. Student, Spring 2015 - Summer 2016 )
     Research Area: Data Mining, Construction Safety

     William B. Hardy (MS Student, Spring 2015 - Summer 2017)
     Research Area: Cybersecurity, Data Mining
     Current Employment: Google