Liuwan Zhu

Liuwan Zhu

Assistant Professor

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Biography

I am an assistant professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. I received my Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Old Dominion University, US, in 2023, advised by Dr. Hongyi Wu and Dr. Chunsheng Xin, and B.S. degree in Computer Science from Hunan University, China, in 2017. My research interests in the intersection of cybersecurity and AI. On the one hand, investigate using machine learning/deep learning to solve security problem in computer system or cyber-physical system; on the other hand, investigate the robustness and safety of the AI systems(such as Computer Vision, Vision-Language Multi-Modal models, Smart Grid), including adversarial attack and backdoor attack.

Download my resumé .

Interests
  • Machine Learning/Deep Learning for Cybersecurity
  • Robustness and Security of AI model
  • Vision-Language Multi-Modal Learning
Education

  • PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2017 - 2023

    Old Dominion University

  • BSc in Computer Science, 2013 - 2017

    Hunan University

Selected Publications

H. Ferguson, R. Ning, H. Wu, L. Zhu, C. Xin, M. S. Uddin, and J. Li, “Efficient Backdoor Mitigation in Federated Learning with Contrastive Loss”, in IEEE Internet of Things Journal (IoTJ), 2026.

S. Chen, L. Zhu, “When Backdoors Go Beyond Triggers: Semantic Drift in Diffusion Models Under Encoder Attacks”, Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026.

P. Jiang, L. Zhu, R. Ning, H. Wu, and C. Xin, “D-SYNC: Enhancing Vehicle Localization with Dashcam-Satellite Image Synchronization”, in IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), 2026.

W. Li, L. Zhu, “RandEye: On-Sensor Stochastic Image Transformation for Backdoor-Resistant Edge Inference”, in Proceedings of the Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI, 2025

L. Zhu, R. Ning, J. Li, C. Xin, and H. Wu, “SEER: Backdoor Detection for Vision-Language Models through Searching Target Text and Image Trigger Jointly. AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. 2024.

L. Zhu, R. Ning, J. Li, C. Xin, and H. Wu, “Most and Least Retrievable Images in Visual-Language Query Systems”, in Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), Tel Aviv, October 23-27, 2022. [PDF]

L. Zhu, R. Ning, C. Xin, and H. Wu, “CLEAR: Clean-up Trigger-Free Backdoor in Neural Networks”, in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), October 11-17, 2021. [PDF]

L. Zhu, R. Ning, C. Wang, C. Xin, and H. Wu, “GangSweep: Sweep out Neural Backdoors by GAN”, in ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM), Seattle, WA, October 12-16 , 2020. [PDF]

R. Ning, C. Wang, C. Xin, J. Li, L. Zhu, and H. Wu, “CapJack: Capture In-Browser Crypto-jacking by Deep Capsule Network through Behavioral Analysis”, in IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Paris, France, April 29-May 2, 2019. (Best In-session Presentation Award). [PDF]

Grants

  • STRATOS: Security and Trust Runtime Architecture for Time-critical Operational Science, DoE Genesis Mission Phase I, 2026-2027, Role: PI
  • Collaborative Research: FEC: AI-Enabled Environmental Surveillance of Microbial and Chemical Threats to Food Production Systems, NSF, $2M, 2026-2030, Role: Co-PI
  • GRID-AIR: Secure and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence for Smart Grid Applications, DOE, $2.4M (UH: $718,834), 2026-2028, Role: Co-PI
  • Planning: DCL EPSCOR: SaTC Frontier: Ensuring Security and Privacy in AI-Enabled Cyber-Physical Systems, NSF, $200,000, 2024-2026, Role: Co-PI
  • Developing a Holistic Evaluation Framework for Multi-Modal AI Security and Trustworthiness on Smart IoT Devices in NextG Wireless Networks, CCI, $50,000, 2023-2024, Role: Senior Personnel

Mentoring

  • Haoyang Xu, PhD, UHM, 2024~
  • Amanda Torres, Master, UHM, Fall 2025~
  • Christian Iha, Master, UHM, Fall 2025~
  • Luis Hernandez, Master, UHM, Summer 2026~

Teaching

EE/ICS660. Computer Architecture [Instructor] (Fall 2023)

GenCyber Summer Camp(Funded by NSA) [Instructor] (Summer 2019-2022)

DeapSECURE Workshop Series(Funded by NSF CyberTraining) [Instructor] (2019-2021)

CYSE635. AI Security and Privacy [Guest Lecturer] (Fall 2021)

CYSE301. Cybersecurity Techniques and Operations [Student Mentor] (Spring 2023)

ECE355. Introduction to Networks and Data Communications [Teatching Assistant] (Fall 2018)

Services

As a Reviewer:

  • IEEE Transaction of Mobile Computing(TMC)
  • IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security(T-IFS)
  • Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal (PMC)
  • IEEE/CVF CVPR 2023
  • ACM MultiMedia 2023/2024

TPC member:

  • IEEE ICNC 2024
  • ACM WiSec 2024

Faculty Mentor:

  • UHM Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP)
  • NSF REU sites at School of Cybersecurity, 2023