2026
LLM-PEA: Leveraging Large Language Models Against Phishing Email Attacks
2026 56th Annual IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W)
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Shaohu Zhang 张少虎
Ph.D. · Assistant Professor · Department of Computer Science
I study how intelligent systems can better assist and protect people: their privacy, their security, and their everyday lives.
Research focus
Technology with people in mind
My research focuses on trustworthy AI, mobile computing, and cybersecurity. I use AI and machine learning with ubiquitous modalities—including WiFi signals, cameras, and acoustics—to develop applications that protect sensitive personal data and secure AI systems.
I collaborate across transportation engineering, sociology, health, agriculture, and data science. I lead the X+ Intelligence Lab and am affiliated with the Cyber Defense and AI Lab.
I earned my Ph.D. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University in 2023, working with Prof. Muhammad Shahzad in the Wolfpack Interactive, Sensing, and Networking Lab and with Prof. Anupam Das in the Wolfpack Security and Privacy Research Lab. From 2023 to 2025, I was an assistant professor in Computer Science at UNC Pembroke.
Research directions
01020304
Security and privacy
Fingerprinting and human biometric security, with a focus on privacy and authentication through embedded sensors in digital devices.
Trustworthy and explainable AI
Context-aware mobile systems that connect cyber-physical systems and AI for reliable, adaptive interactions.
Mobile computing
Sensing with WiFi, cameras, inertial measurement units, virtual reality, unmanned aerial vehicles, and sound for intelligent transportation and smart homes.
Large language models and NLP
Speech privacy, speech translation, and applications of large language models in agriculture and transportation.
Recent publications
2026
Vision-Language Models in Medical Applications: A Review
IEEE Access
2026
Edge-Based Privacy Auditing for Trustworthy Humanoid Robot Interaction
2026 56th Annual IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks-Supplemental Volume (DSN-S)
2025
Decoding Neighborhood Environments with Large Language Models
2025 55th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W)
2025
Leveraging Cross-Attention Transformer and Multi-Feature Fusion for Cross-Linguistic Speech Emotion Recognition
IEEE Internet of Things Journal
2024
Privacy Measurement of Physical Attributes on Voice Anonymity
The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (ACM MobiCom '24)
Teaching
LLM and Security
Fall 2026; Course Website: https://zhangshaohu.github.io/llm_security/
Software Specifications and Design
Spring 2026
Theory of Computing
Spring 2026; Fall 2025
Professional service
Technical Program Committee
- IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 2026.
- 26th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), 2026.
- International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), Honolulu, Hawaii, 2025.
- 25th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), Washington, D.C., 2025.
- First International Workshop on IoT Datasets for Multi-modal Large Model (IoT-MMLM), in conjunction with SenSys, 2024.
- IEEE 100th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall), Washington, D.C., 2024.
- 2nd ACM Workshop on Smart Wearable Systems and Applications (SmartWear), in conjunction with MobiCom, Madrid, Spain, October 6, 2023.
- IEEE 98th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall), Hong Kong, 2023.
- Ph.D. Forum, 53rd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 2023.
Artifact Review Program Committee
- USENIX Security Symposium, 2023.
- Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PoPETs), 2023.
- ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (AsiaCCS), 2023.
- Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2023.
- ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec), 2022–2023.
Conference and Journal Reviewer
- ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2021–2024.
- Transportation Research Record (TRR), 2023.
- International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (IJHCI), 2023.
- ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2021–2023.
- Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2022–2023.
- ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec), 2021–2022.
- ACM Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2019, 2021, 2022.
- IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2021.
- ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation (BuildSys), 2019.
- IEEE Security & Privacy.
- IEEE Transactions on Reliability.
- ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems.
- IEEE Internet of Things Journal.
- IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.
Research Connections
- My Erdős number is 4: Paul Erdős → Daniel J. Kleitman → Joseph Y.-T. Leung → Sang Hyuk Son → Shaohu Zhang.
Awards & fellowships
- COE Mentored Teaching Fellowship, College of Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2023.
- Summer Graduate Fellowship, College of Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2022.
- Travel awards from SenSys 2016, MobiCom 2017, MobiCom 2021, and CCS 2021.
- COE Graduate Research Award, College of Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2018.
- Sigma Xi Graduate Research Award, South Dakota State University, 2016.
- Best Undergraduate Thesis Award, Zhejiang Ocean University, China, 2010.
- Excellent Student Scholarship, Zhejiang Ocean University, China, 2008.