Xiaotian Zhou

Xiaotian Zhou

PhD Candidate, Computer Science and Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University

About

I am a PhD candidate in Computer Science and Engineering at Penn State, advised by Dr. Syed Rafiul Hussain and Dr. Gang Tan. I work at the intersection of computer security and programming languages: verified parsers, bug finding through fuzzing and differential testing, and undefined behavior in ‘safe’ languages like Rust.

Verified parsersFormal methodsFuzzing & differential testing Program analysisRust & memory safetyProtocol security (5G, V2X)

Publications

IEEE S&P 2027
Kai Tu, Tianchang Yang, Xiaotian Zhou, Ali Ranjbar, Abdullah Al Ishtiaq, Tianwei Wu, Yilu Dong, Syed Rafiul Hussain
CCS 2026
Xiaotian Zhou, Kai Tu, Ali Ranjbar, Yilu Dong, Gang Tan, Syed Rafiul Hussain
Verified ASN.1 UPER parsers used as a differential-testing oracle; found 20 types of inconsistency across 11 parsers for 5G and V2X, with working attacks.

Experience

Research Intern, Cryptography and Security — Seagate Technology

Summer 2026 · Mentor: Hannah Davis

Formal security analysis of OCP L.O.C.K., the Open Compute Project’s key-management spec for self-encrypting drives, focusing on its use of HPKE (RFC 9180). Analysis in SSProve, connected to a Rust implementation via Hax.

Research

Undefined behavior in Unsafe Rust

Ongoing

Aliasing violations (Stacked/Tree Borrows) are currently only caught by Miri, which is too slow for routine use. I am investigating whether we can use the static lifetime information computed by Polonius to speed up sanitizers like BorrowSanitizer.

News

  • Sep 2026Octopus accepted to IEEE S&P 2027.
  • Summer 2026Joined Seagate Technology as a research intern.
  • May 2026VUPER accepted to CCS 2026.
  • Dec 2025Passed the PhD Comprehensive Exam.
  • May 2025Received my M.S. from Penn State.

Education

  • 2025–presentPh.D., Computer Science and Engineering
    The Pennsylvania State University
  • 2023–2025M.S., Computer Science and Engineering
    The Pennsylvania State University
  • 2021–2022Visiting student
    University of California, Berkeley
  • 2019–2023B.E., Computer Science and Technology
    ShanghaiTech University

Teaching