About Me

Hello to whoever steps on this page :)

I am Weijia, an Assistant professor (Lecturer) in the School of ECS at the University of Southampton. I mainly work on human-centred security and privacy research, often with a focus on ubiquitous computing systems. As a believer that technology is the closest form of magic we can find in the real world, I always feel excited about how computing systems can impact the physical world and how we can utilize this magic to better support people’s lives. My prior work is mainly about security and privacy research on home IoT devices, and I am looking forward to doing more in other ubiquitous computing systems (e.g., AR/VR, smart environment, etc.)

Before joining the University of Southampton, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College, working with Professor David Kotz on the SPLICE project. I obtained my Ph.D. degree of Computer Science at University of Chicago, advised by Professor Blase Ur, and my B.Eng. in Cybersecurity from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2017.

I am looking for prospective Ph.D. students to join me in 2025. I also welcome master students or undergrads who would like to get a taste of what research is like. If my research sounds like something you would love to explore more, feel free to drop me an email.

Employment

• University of Southampton (2024-Present)
  • Lecturer/Assistant professor
• Dartmouth College (2022-2024)
  • Postdoctoral researcher

Education

• University of Chicago (2017-2022)
  • Ph.D. in Computer Science (2022)
  • M.S. in Computer Science (2020)
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2013-2017)
  • B.Eng. in Cybersecurity

Service

• PC Member, IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland): 2025
• PC Member, ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): 2024
• PC Member, The Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS): 2024 and 2023.
• Publication Chair, The Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS): 2023 and 2022.
• PC Member, Workshop on Security and Privacy in Standardized IoT (SDIoTSec): 2024
• PC Member, Symposium on Usable Security (USEC) 2023 Program: 2024 and 2023.
• Poster jury, Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS): 2022, 2021.
• Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC) Member, Usenix Security Symposium: 2022, 2021.
• Shadow PC member, The 41st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2020.
• PC member, “Ubiquitous Privacy: Research and Design for Mobile and IoT Platforms” - The Networked Privacy Workshop at CSCW 2019.
• PC member, The 4th European Workshop on Usable Security: 2020 and 2019.

Awards

• Siebel Scholar, class of 2022 ($35,000)
• Finalist for the 2020 NortonLifeLock Graduate Fellowship
• 2019 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy Student Travel Grant ($1,250).
• 2018 USENIX Security Student Grant ($745).
• 2018 SOUPS Student Grant ($770).