About Me

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at Dartmouth College, working with Professor David Kotz on the SPLICE project.
Before that, I obtained my Ph.D. degree of Computer Science at University of Chicago, advised by Professor Blase Ur. I received my B.Eng. in Information Security from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2017.

My main research interests relate to security and privacy issues in ubiquitous computing systems. I studied contextual access control systems in smart homes in terms of both users’ mental models (USENIX Security 2018) and sensing techniques (EuroS&P 2021). My recent project is around network traffic analysis for smart home devices. Outside smart homes, I am also generally interested in any IoT systems (or CPS). It is exciting to think about all the technologies that might have a physical impact in one’s daily life and how we can make them more secure.

Education

• University of Chicago (2017-2022)
  • Ph.D. of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2013-2017)
  • B.Eng. of Information Security

Publications

• [EuroS&P 2021] SoK: Context Sensing for Access Control in the Adversarial Home IoT
  Weijia He, Valerie Zhao, Olivia Morkved, Sabeeka Siddiqui, Earlence Fernandes, Josiah Hester, Blase Ur.
  Proceedings of the 6th IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P 2021). Online, September 2021.
• [IMWUT/UbiComp 2020] Trace2TAP: Synthesizing Trigger-Action Programs From Traces of Behavior
  Lefan Zhang, Weijia He, Olivia Morkved, Valerie Zhao, Michael L. Littman, Shan Lu, Blase Ur.
  Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies 4, 3, Article 104 (IMWUT / UbiComp). Online, September 2020.
• [ICSE 2019] AutoTap: Synthesizing and Repairing Trigger-Action Programs Using LTL Properties
  Lefan Zhang, Weijia He, Jesse Martinez, Noah Brackenbury, Shan Lu, Blase Ur
  Proceedings of the 41st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). Montreal, QC, Canada, May 2019.
• [CHI 2019] How Users Interpret Bugs in Trigger-Action Programming
  Will Brackenbury, Abhimanyu Deora, Jillian Ritchey, Jason Vallee, Weijia He, Guan Wang, Michael L. Littman, Blase Ur
  Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Glasgow, UK, May 2019.
• [SafeThings 2019] When Smart Devices Are Stupid: Negative Experiences Using Home Smart Devices
  Weijia He, Jesse Martinez, Roshni Padhi, Lefan Zhang, Blase Ur.
  Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on the Internet of Safe Things. San Francisco, CA, May 2019.
• [USENIX Security 2018] Rethinking Access Control and Authentication for the Home Internet of Things (IoT)
  Weijia He, Maximilian Golla, Roshni Padhi, Jordan Ofek, Markus Dürmuth, Earlence Fernandes, Blase Ur
  Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium. Baltimore, MD, August 2018.
• [WSSP 2018] Clap On, Clap Off: Usability of Authentication Methods in the Smart Home
  Weijia He, Juliette Hainline, Roshni Padhi, Blase Ur
  Proceedings of the Interactive Workshop on the Human Aspect of Smarthome Security and Privacy (WSSP). Baltimore, MD, August 2018.

Service

• PC Member, The 23rd Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2023)
• Publication Chair, The 22nd Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2022) and 2023.
• Poster jury, Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS), 2021, 2022.
• Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC) Member, Usenix Security Symposium, 2021, 2022.
• 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, 2019, 2020.

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).

Teaching Experiences

• Lab Coordinator for Data Science Institute Summer Lab, 2022
• Instructor for Introduction to Computer Science (CMSC 15100): 2021
• Course Assistant for Machine Learning for Cybersecurity
• Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Security (CMSC 23200 / CMSC 33200): 2021, 2022
• Teaching Assistant for Ethics, Fairness, Responsibility, and Privacy in Data Science (CMSC 25910) 2020, 2022.
• Instructor for the superpowHer: compileHer Tech Capstone 2019
• Teaching Assistant for Usable Security and Privacy (CMSC 23210 / CMSC 33210): 2018, 2019
• Teaching Assistant for Computer Science with Applications 1 (CMSC 12100): 2017