Heather Zheng

Welcome! I am the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at University of Chicago. I received my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park in 1999. Prior to joining University of Chicago in 2017, I spent 6 years in industry labs (Bell-Labs, NJ and Microsoft Research Asia), and 12 years at University of California at Santa Barbara. At UChicago, I co-direct the SAND Lab (Systems, Algorithms, Networking and Data) together with Prof. Ben Y. Zhao.

I was selected as one of the MIT Technology Review's TR 35 (2005) for my work on Cognitive Radios; my work was featured by MIT Technology Review as one of the 10 Emerging Technologies (2006). I am a fellow of the World Technology Network, and an IEEE Fellow (class'15). More details in my CV.

I am always looking for talented and self-motivated graduate students on mobile/wireless networks and machine learning. Prospective students should email me your resume with a subject line of "UChicago PhD Applicant." I am also looking for undergraduates in these areas (email me your resume with a subject line of "UChicago UG Research.")

My Research
Over my 20 years in research labs and academia, my research has evolved and adapted to target important high impact research problems that match my interests and research background. Both Ben and I subscribe to the practice of focusing on innovative ideas and maximizing impact over incrementalism. In the past, this has covered significant ground in wireless networking, mobile systems, network measurements and security. Most recently, I am focusing my attention on two broad areas: mobile/IoT sensing and its implications on security and privacy (what does the increasing ubiquity of sensors for both wireless RF and audio mean for personal privacy and security), and security & privacy of deep learning systems (how can we design and train deep neural networks to improve security for computer systems while remaining robust against a wide range of powerful adversarial attacks).

Press/Media: A collection of recent news and media coverage of our SAND Lab's research is here.

Professional Activities

TPC co-Chair: MobiCom 2015,DySPAN 2011, SDR 2009
Recent TPCs: WWW'18, IMC'15-'17, MobiSys'17-18, NSDI'17, MobiCom'15-'17
Journals: Trans. on Networking (Assoc. Editor, 2013-2017), Trans. on Mobile Computing (Assoc. Editor, 2008-13), Trans. on Wireless Communication (Editor, 2008-09), Physical Communication (Editorial Board & Guest Editor)