Zhaohan Xi

Zhaohan Xi

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

I am a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of School of Computing at Binghamton University, The State University of New York (SUNY).

Before joining in Binghamton, 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 Cybersecurity and Healthcare in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs), aiming to develop agentic systems, equipped with 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:

  • Large Language Models: Multi-Agent, Multimodality, Tool Learning, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), Reinforcement with Human Feedback (RLHF), Game Theory, Scaling Law
  • Healthcare/Biomed AI: Causal Discovery and Reasoning, Drug Repurposing, Cardiologist-level LLMs, ECG Analysis, Medical Causal Transformer
  • Cybersecurity: Cyber Threat Hunting, Red/Blue Teaming, Threat Intelligence
  • AI Security: Security and Privacy on AI/Machine Learning, Trustworthy AI, Responsible AI
  • Graph Learning: Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Knowledge Graph, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Decision-making

🔥 News

  • 2025.06  📝 I served as an ARR/EMNLP reviewer.
  • 2025.06  📝 I served as a NSF panelist with AI subjects.
  • 2025.05  🎉 I earned ICLR Notable Reviewer, thank you ICLR!
  • 2025.04  🎉 I earned Outstanding Service and Support Award, thank you Binghamton!
  • 2025.04  📝 I served as a NSF panelist with Security subjects.
  • 2025.02  📝 I served as a NSF panelist with AI subjects.
  • 2025.02  📝 I served as an ARR/ACL reviewer.
  • 2025.02  📝 I served as a KDD reviewer.
  • 2024.11  📝 I served as an ICLR reviewer.
  • 2024.06  📝 I served as a NSF panelist with AI subjects.

📝 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.