XIAO
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Xiao Cheng

Xiao Cheng is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), working with Scientia Associate Professor Yulei Sui. His research focuses on enhancing software reliability and performance through program analysis and verification techniques. He is also interested in the synergy between artificial intelligence, particularly large language models, and program analysis and verification.

His papers have been published in top-tier conferences and journals in the field of software engineering (TOSEM, FSE, ICSE, ISSTA), programming languages (OOPSLA) and security (TDSC), and awarded ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award for FSE 2024 and ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper Award for OOPSLA 2020. He has served as the web chair of LCTES 2024 and is serving or has served as artifact evaluation committee members for ICSE 2025, ISSTA 2024/2023, SAS 2023 and FormaliSE 2024/2023, and PC member for ISSRE 2024 (DS track).

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News

  • news 06/2024, We're honored to receive the Distinguished Paper Award at FSE. Thanks to the community for recognizing our work!
  • news 01/2024, Our work on quantum speedups on dynamic transitive closure-based static analysis accepted at TOSEM.
  • news 01/2024, Our work on path-sensitive typestate analysis accepted at FSE 2024.
  • news 12/2023, Our work on cross-domain abstract execution accepted at ICSE 2024.
  • 07/2022, Our empirical study on learning-based vulnerability detection accepted at TDSC.
  • 04/2022, Our work on path-sensitive code embedding accepted at ISSTA 2022.
  • 04/2021, Our work on learning-based vulnerability detection accepted at TOSEM.
  • 11/2020, Our work on code embedding received a Distinguished Paper Award.
  • Publications

    1. CCF-A Dynamic Transitive Closure-Based Static Analysis through the Lens of Quantum Search
      Jiawei Ren, Yulei Sui, Xiao Cheng, Yuan Feng and Jianjun Zhao
      ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) PDF BIB
    2. CCF-A ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper AWARD Fast Graph Simplification for Path-Sensitive Typestate Analysis through Tempo-Spatial Multi-Point Slicing
      Xiao Cheng, Jiawei Ren, Yulei Sui
      32nd ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE '24) PDF Slides BIB
    3. CCF-A Precise Sparse Abstract Execution via Cross-Domain Interaction
      Xiao Cheng, Jiawei Wang, Yulei Sui
      46th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE '24) PDF Slides BIB
    4. CCF-C Vulnerability Detection via Typestate-Guided Code Representation Learning
      Xiao Cheng
      International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods (ICFEM '23) PDF BIB
    5. CCF-A How About Bug-Triggering Paths? - Understanding and Characterizing Learning-Based Vulnerability Detectors
      Xiao Cheng, Xu Nie, Ningke Li, Haoyu Wang, Zheng Zheng, Yulei Sui
      IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC) PDF BIB
    6. CCF-A Path-Sensitive Code Embedding via Contrastive Learning for Software Vulnerability Detection
      Xiao Cheng, Guanqin Zhang, Haoyu Wang and Yulei Sui
      The 31st ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA '22) PDF Slides BIB
    7. CCF-A DeepWukong: Statically Detecting Software Vulnerabilities using Deep Graph Neural Network
      Xiao Cheng, Haoyu Wang, Jiayi Hua, Guoai Xu and Yulei Sui
      ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) PDF BIB
    8. CCF-A ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper AWARD Flow2Vec: Value-Flow-Based Precise Code Embedding
      Yulei Sui, Xiao Cheng, Guanqin Zhang and Haoyu Wang
      Proceedings of ACM OOPSLA 2020 PDF BIB
    9. CORE-A Static Detection of Control-Flow-Related Vulnerabilities Using Graph Embedding
      Xiao Cheng, Haoyu Wang, Jiayi Hua, Miao Zhang, Guoai Xu, Li Yi and Yulei Sui
      The 24th International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS 2019) PDF BIB

    Services

  • Webchair of LCTES 2024.
  • (Co-)Reviewer of ICSE 2024/2021, ASE 2023/2022, FSE 2022, ISSTA 2024, ISSRE 2022, SCAM 2021, CSUR 2021, TOSEM, TOPLAS, TSE.
  • PC member of ISSRE 2024 (DS track).
  • Artifact Evaluation Committee of ICSE 2025, ISSTA 2024/2023, SAS 2023, FormaliSE 2024/2023.
  • Teaching Experience

  • Developer and mantainer, Teaching-Software-Analysis, an online open courses for learning software analysis via SVF.
  • Tutor and lab demonstrator, 41181 Information Security and Management, UTS, 2024.
  • Tutor and lab demonstrator, 41128 Software Analysis Studio, UTS, 2024.
  • Course admin, COMP6131 Software Security Analysis, UNSW, 2024
  • Tutor and lab demonstrator, Software Analysis, SSTC Software Engineering Studio, NEUQ, 2024.
  • Tutor and lab demonstrator, 41184 Secure Programming and Penetration Testing, UTS, 2024
  • Tutor and lab demonstrator, 41128 Software Analysis Studio, UTS, 2023.
  • Tutor and lab demonstrator, Software Analysis, SSTC Software Engineering Studio, NEUQ, 2023.
  • Lecturer, 41128 Software Analysis Studio, UTS, 2022.
  • Subject coordinator and lecturer, Software Analysis, SSTC Software Engineering Studio, NEUQ, 2022.
  • Tutor, 41128 Software Analysis Studio, UTS, 2021.
  • Lecturer, Software Analysis, SSTC Software Engineering Studio, NEUQ, 2021.
  • Tools

  • Developer and mantainer, SVF (authored by Yulei Sui), a source code analysis framework that enables interprocedural dependence analysis for LLVM-based languages.
  • Creator, DeepWukong, a graph neural network based software vulnerability detector.
  • Education

  • 2021-present, Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW).
  • 2014-2021, B.Eng and M.Res in Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT).
  • Awards

  • 2024, ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award (FSE).
  • 2024, Development and Research Training Grant (DRTG), UNSW.
  • 2022, Apple Scholars in AI/ML PhD fellowship nomination.
  • 2021, International Research Training Program Scholarship (IRTP) Offer.
  • 2020, NASAC prototype competition third prize.
  • 2020, ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Paper Award (OOPSLA).
  • 2016, Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling, Honorable Mention.
  • Misc

  • Tips on writing a research paper, Doing Research in Software Analysis Lessons and Tips.
  • Abstract Interpretation, Static Program Analysis, and more
  • LLVM, Z3, SVF, Tai-e, Qilin, IKOS, Crab, POCR.
  • Overleaf Tutorials, SimpleTex, Markdown Guide, Docker.
  • CPP/C, LLVM IR.
  • Welcome to use this website's source code, just add a link back to here. .