Zhaohan Xi

Zhaohan Xi

Binghamton University, The State University of New York (SUNY)

I am an Assistant Professor of School of Computing at Binghamton University, The State University of New York (SUNY).

I earned my Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University – College of Information Science and Technology. During the final year of my Ph.D., I was also a visiting scholar a Stony Brook University (SUNY) – Computer Science Department. Before that, I received my master’s degree from Lehigh University and my bachelor’s degree from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

My research focuses on AI Security & Privacy and Clinical AI in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs), aiming to develop responsible, robust, and resilient strategies to improve AI’s expertise and reliability. Beyond LLMs, my research also involves advanced AI techniques, including Graph Learning, Knowledge Graph Reasoning, Prompt Engineering, and AutoML.

🔎 Research Interest:

  • NLP/LLM: LLM-as-Agent, Multimodality, Prompt Engineering, Tool Learning, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
  • Adversarial/Responsible AI: security and privacy on AI/Machine Learning, trustworthy AI
  • Clinical AI: Cardiologist-level LLMs, ECG Analysis, Medical Causal Transformer
  • Graph Learning: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Knowledge Graph, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Decision-making
  • Advanced ML: AutoML, Constrastive Learning, Self-supervised Learning

🔥 News

  • 2024-2025  📝 I am teaching a graduate-level course “LLMs: Foundation and Applications.”
  • 2024.06  📝 I served as a panelist of NSF/CISE/IIS/III program.

📝 Publication

NeurIPS 2023
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Defending Pre-trained Language Models as Few-shot Learners against Backdoor Attacks

Zhaohan Xi, Tianyu Du, Changjiang Li, Ren Pang, Shouling Ji, Jinghui Chen, Fenglong Ma, Ting Wang

Project

  • Highlights: Pre-trained Language Models, Prompt Engineering, AI Security.
USENIX Security 2023
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On the Security Risks of Knowledge Graph Reasoning

Zhaohan Xi, Tianyu Du, Changjiang Li, Ren Pang, Shouling Ji, Xiapu Luo, Xusheng Xiao, Fenglong Ma, Ting Wang

Project

  • Highlights: Knowledge Graph, Reasoning, AI Security, Decision-making, Cyber Intelligence, Clinical Decision Support.
USENIX Security 2021
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Graph Backdoor

Zhaohan Xi, Ren Pang, Shouling Ji, Ting Wang

Project

  • Highlights: Graph Learning, Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Backdoor (Trojaning) Attack.

📖 Education

  • 2020.01 - 2024.05, Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University.
  • 2023.08 - 2024.05, Visiting Scholar, Stony Brook University.
  • 2016.08 - 2018.05, Master, Lehigh University.
  • 2012.09 - 2016.06, Bachelor, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

💻 Internship

  • 2024.07 - 2024.09, Sony AI Research Scientist Internship, New York, NY.
  • 2023.05 - 2023.08, Microsoft Data Scientist Internship, Seattle, WA.
  • 2022.05 - 2022.08, Uber Ph.D. Software Engineering Internship, Sunnyvale, CA.