Yu Feng

Assistant Professor

UC Santa Barbara

Biography

I am an assistant professor in the computer science department at UCSB. I am also the founder of Nubit, where we explore innovative blockchain projects that extend beyond the boundaries of academia. I received my Ph.D. in computer science from UT Austin in 2018.

My research interests include programming languages, program analysis and verification, program synthesis, and security. More specifically, I want to build automated tools to guarantee the desired behavior of a system in a sound, precise and scalable way. I am also interested in applying program synthesis/analysis to build and break systems, tackling security and performance problems in mobile devices and blockchain.

I am actively looking for self-motivated and talented students and postdocs. If you are interested in building cutting-edge program synthesis/analysis framework that combines the power of logical reasoning and machine learning, please drop me an email with your CV (Knowledge on constraint solving or functional programming languages will be a big plus).

Interests

Programming Languages
Program Synthesis
Program Analysis
Security

Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science, 2018

University of Texas at Austin
MS in Computer Science, 2008

Beihang University

Students

Yanju Chen (PhD)

Junrui Liu (PhD)

Hongbo Wen (PhD)

Hanzhi Liu (PhD)

Bryan Tan (BS/MS)

Recent Publications

More Publications

Hongbo Wen, Hanzhi Liu, Jiaxin Song, Yanju Chen, Wenbo Guo, Yu Feng. FORAY: Towards Effective Attack Synthesis against Deep Logical Vulnerabilities in DeFi Protocols. CCS, 2024.

Tamjid Al Rahat, Yu Feng, Yuan Tian. AuthSaber: Automated Safety Verification of OpenID Connect Programs. CCS, 2024.

Junrui Liu, Jingtao Xia, Nicholas Brown, Yanju Chen, Yu Feng. Refinement Types for Visualization. ASE, 2024.

Junrui Liu, Hanzhi Liu, Ian Kretz, Bryan Tan, Jonathan Wang, Yi Sun, Luke Pearson, Anders Miltner, Isil Dillig, Yu Feng. Certifying Zero-Knowledge Circuits with Refinement Types. IEEE Security & Privacy, 2024 (Oakland).

Hongbo Wen, Jon Stephens, Yanju Chen, Kostas Ferles, Shankara Pailoor, Kyle Charbonnet, Isil Dillig, Yu Feng. Practical Security Analysis of Zero-Knowledge Proof Circuits. USENIX Security, 2024.

Yanju Chen, Chenglong Wang, Xinyu Wang, Osbert Bastani, Yu Feng. Fast and Reliable Program Synthesis via User Interaction. ASE, 2023.

Junrui Liu, Yanju Chen, Eric Atkinson, Yu Feng, Ras Bodik. Conflict-Driven Synthesis for Layout Engines. PLDI 2023.

Yanju Chen, Shankara Pailoor, Franklyn Wang, Clara Rodríguez, Jacob Van Geffen, Jason Morton, Michael Chu, Brian Gu, Yu Feng, Isil Dillig. Automated Detection of Under-constrained Circuits in Zero-Knowledge Proofs. PLDI 2023.

Junrui Liu, Yanju Chen, Bryan Tan, Isil Dillig, Yu Feng. Learning Contract Invariants Using Reinforcement Learning. ASE,2022.

Tamjid Al Rahat, Yu Feng, Yuan Tian. Cerberus: Query-driven Scalable Security Checking for OAuth Service Provider Implementations. CCS, 2022.

Yanju Chen, Xifeng Yan, Yu Feng. Visualization Question Answering Using Introspective Program Synthesis. (Distinguished Paper Award) PLDI, 2022.

Yanju Chen, Junrui Liu, Yu Feng, Ras Bodik. Tree Traversal Synthesis Using Domain-Specific Symbolic Compilation. ASPLOS, 2022.

Bryan Tan, Benjamin Mariano, Shuvendu Lahiri, Isil Dillig, Yu Feng. SolType: Refinement Types for Solidity. POPL, 2022.

Benjamin Mariano, Yanju Chen, Yu Feng, Greg Durrett, Isil Dillig. Automated Transpilation of Imperative to Functional Code using Neural-Guided Program Synthesis. OOPSLA, 2022.

Yuepeng Wang, Maruth Goyal, James Dong, Yanju Chen, Yu Feng, Isil Dillig. Synthesis-Powered Optimization of Smart Contracts via Data Type Refactoring. OOPSLA, 2022.

Priyanka Bose, Dipanjan Das, Yanju Chen, Yu Feng, Christopher Kruegel, Giovanni Vigna . SAILFISH: Vetting Smart Contract State-Inconsistency Bugs in Seconds. IEEE Security & Privacy, 2022 (Oakland).

Zhen Zhang, Yu Feng, Michael D. Ernst, Sebastian Porst, Isil Dillig. Checking Conformance of Applications against GUI Policies. FSE, 2021.

Chenglong Wang, Yu Feng, Ras Bodik, Isil Dillig, Alvin Cheung, Amy J Ko . Falx: Synthesis-Powered Visualization Authoring. (Best Paper Award) CHI, 2021.

Yu Feng, Emina Torlak, Ras Bodik . Summary-Based Symbolic Evaluation for Smart Contracts. (Distinguished Paper Award) ASE, 2020.

Benjamin Mariano, Yanju Chen, Yu Feng, Shuvendu Lahiri, Isil Dillig. Demystifying Loops in Smart Contracts. ASE, 2020.

Yanju Chen, Chenglong Wang, Osbert Bastani, Isil Dillig, Yu Feng. Program Synthesis using Deduction-Guided Reinforcement Learning. CAV, 2020.

Chenglong Wang, Yu Feng, Ras Bodik, Alvin Cheung, Isil Dillig. Visualization by Example. POPL, 2020.

Tamjid Al Rahat, Yu Feng, Yuan Tian. OAuthLint: An Empirical Study on OAuth Bugs in Android Applications. ASE, 2019.

Yanju Chen, Ruben Martins, Yu Feng. Maximal Multi-layer Specification Synthesis. FSE, 2019.

Jia Chen, Jiayi Wei, Yu Feng, Osbert Bastani, Isil Dillig. Relational Verification using Reinforcement Learning. OOPSLA, 2019.

Jia Chen, Ruben Martins, Yanju Chen, Yu Feng, Isil Dillig. Trinity: An Extensible Synthesis Framework for Data Science. PVLDB, 2019.

Yu Feng, Ruben Martins, Osbert Bastani, Isil Dillig. Program Synthesis using Conflict-Driven Learning. (Distinguished Paper Award) PLDI, 2018.

Jiayi Wei, Jia Chen, Yu Feng, Kostas Ferles, Isil Dillig. Singularity: Pattern Fuzzing for Worst Case Complexity. FSE, 2018.

Jia Chen, Yu Feng, Isil Dillig. Precise Detection of Side-Channel Vulnerabilities using Quantitative Cartesian Hoare Logic. CCS, 2017.

Yu Feng, Ruben Martins, Jacob Van Geffen, Isil Dillig, Swarat Chaudhuri. Component-based Synthesis of Table Consolidation and Transformation Tasks from Examples. PLDI, 2017.

Yu Feng, Osbert Bastani, Ruben Martins, Isil Dillig, Saswat Anand. Automated Synthesis of Semantic Malware Signatures using Maximum Satisfiability. NDSS, 2017.

Yu Feng, Ruben Martins, Yuepeng Wang, Isil Dillig, Thomas W. Reps. Component-Based Synthesis for Complex APIs. POPL, 2017.

Yuepeng Wang, Yu Feng, Ruben Martins, Isil Dillig, Steven P. Reiss. Hunter: Next-Generation Code Reuse for Java. FSE, 2016.

Yu Feng, Xinyu Wang, Isil Dillig, Thomas Dillig. Bottom-up Context-Sensitive Pointer Analysis for Java. APLAS, 2015.

Yu Feng, Xinyu Wang, Isil Dillig, Calvin Lin. EXPLORER: Query- and Demand-Driven Exploration of Interprocedural Control Flow Properties. OOPSLA, 2015.

Yu Feng, Saswat Anand, Isil Dillig, Alex Aiken. Apposcopy: Semantics-Based Detection of Android Malware through Static Analysis. FSE, 2014.

Awards and Grants

Ethereum Academic Award, 2024

Ethereum Academic Award, 2023

ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper Award, PLDI 2022.

ACM SIGCHI Best Paper Award, CHI 2021

Google Faculty Research Award (Security), 2021

ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award, ASE 2020

DARPA HARDEN, 2022-2025.

NSF-SaTC (core) medium, 2019-2022.

ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper Award, PLDI 2018.

UT Austin Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship, 2018.

ACM SIGPLAN PAC award, 2017.

Service

Program Committee: CCS’25, PLDI’25, CCS’24, OOPSLA’24, CCS’23, PLDI’22, ICSE’22, ASPLOS’21, OOPSLA’20, PLDI’20, POPL’20 (ERC), CAV’20, CAV’19, POPL’18 (AEC), ECOOP’18 (AEC), CAV’16 (AEC), MOBILESoft’16 (Publicity Chair), and MOBILESoft’15

External Review: POPL’18, CAV’18, TSE’18 (Transactions on Software Engineering), POPL’17, OOPSLA’16, PLDI’16, and PLDI’15

Contact

yufeng@cs.ucsb.edu
Harold Frank Hall, Room 2157, UCSB