My research interests are primarily about security and privacy, two of the most common questions in any computer system. In particular, I focus on developing access control solution for online social networking/computing systems that helps users enjoy sharing while keeping their data away from inappropriate access.

My PhD dissertation is about access control in online social networks (OSNs), entitled "Access Control for Online Social Networks Using Relationship Type Patterns". The objective of this research is to demonstrate that greater generality and flexibility in policy specification and effective access evaluation can be achieved in OSNs using relationship type patterns.
I am currently working on the following research projects:

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I was involved in the following research projects:

  1. A Cross-Layer Protocol Design for Safeguarding V2X Communications Against Malicious Attacks
    • Principal Investigator: Mohammed Eltayeb
    • Co-Principal Investigator: Yuan Cheng
    • Sponsor: Research and Creative Activity (RCA) Faculty Awards, CSUS, 2022 - 2023
    • Description: "Develop novel low-complexity security techniques to safeguard vehicular communication systems against malicious attacks."

  2. A Web-based Interactive Algorithm Simulator for Computer Science Courses
    • Principal Investigator: Yuan Cheng
    • Sponsor: Probationary Faculty Development Grant, CSUS, 2020
    • Description: "Generate a collection of interactive animation projects for CSUS Computer Science courses."

  3. Learning Academy: An Interactive Question Repository for Sac State
    • Principal Investigator: Yuan Cheng
    • Sponsor: Probationary Faculty Development Grant, CSUS, 2018
    • Description: "Develop an online interactive question repository for CSUS Computer Science courses."

  4. GE CSU Innovation Challenge
    • Principal Investigator: Yuan Cheng
    • Sponsor: GE Digital, 2018
    • Description: "Develop an app to tackle urban challenges like climate change, traffic optimization, mobility, and more by bringing together a variety of information sources using Predix services, CityIQ live data, real-time natural and man-made environment data APIs, historical datasets that may provide insights, and information extracted from related activity datasets."

  5. GE CSU Innovation Challenge
    • Principal Investigator: Yuan Cheng
    • Sponsor: GE Digital, 2017
    • Description: "A challenge designed to spark the interest in the engineering and computer science talent across CSU's to develop projects, products, applications, and solutions utilizing GE's Predix technology for the Industrial Internet."

  6. Enhancing Situational Awareness for Emergency Response Using Social Media Provenance
    • Principal Investigator: Ram Krishnan
    • Co-Principal Investigator: Jaehong Park
    • Sponsor: LMI, 2014 - 2015
    • Description: "The major goal of this project is to establish location proximity and relationship proximity between information, users, and events in order to enhance the veracity of information available from social media."

  7. Privacy-Enhanced Secure Data Provenance
    • Principal Investigator: Ravi Sandhu
    • Sponsor: National Science Foundation, 2011 - 2016
    • Description: "The scientific objective is to create a framework of theoretical foundations, models, mechanisms and architectures that allow applications to benefit from privacy-enhanced and security use of provenance in a modular fashion."

  8. SNGuard: Securing Dynamic Online Social Networks
    • Principal Investigator: Ravi Sandhu
    • Sponsor: National Science Foundation, 2008 - 2012
    • Description: "Our goal is to develop a comprehensive and compelling framework SNGuard (Social Network Guard) that satisfies diverse privacy properties, access control issues, identity management requirements, and usage patterns."