Zhou Yang’s profile photo

Zhou YANG 杨 洲 [Pronunciation]

Assistant Professor
University of Alberta Fellow, Amii Ph.D, SMU M.Sc., UCL

Google Scholar

Yangzhou graduated from Yangzhou University in Yangzhou City 🇨🇳

I'm the funniest teacher🧑‍🏫 in Jurong West Primary School🇸🇬 (Unofficially nominated by several kids)

U-A-Goose Research Group

I lead the U-A-Goose (GrOup Of Software Engineering) research group at the University of Alberta. We study trustworthy software engineering for the AI era, with a focus on large language models for code, AI security & privacy, and efficient AI systems.

🏠 Lab Website 👥 Team 📄 Publications 🎓 Join Us

News

• [2026.03] One paper on efficient code LLM inference with quantization and compilation-time optimization is accepted by FSE 2026!
• [2026.03] I'm extremely honored to win the MSR Outstanding Doctoral Reserch Award🏆! There is only one award this year.
• [2026.01] One paper (on automatically protecting critical software operations in TEE) is accepted by IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering!
• [2025.12] I'm extremely honored to win the ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award🏆! There is only one award this year.
• [2025.11] Our paper (on understanding user perceptions of AI coding assistants) wins the Distinguished Paper Award🏆 at ASE 2025!
• [2025.10] One paper (on backdoor attack for code encoder models) is accepted by ICSE 2026!
• [2025.09] One paper (on locating relevant code from user reviews) is accepted by TOSEM!
• [2025.08] Two papers (on understanding user perceptions of AI coding assistants and reducing the token usage of code generators) are accepted by ASE 2025!
• [2025.08] Our paper wins the prestigious 2024 IEEE Computer Society Best Paper Award🏆! (1 out of 183)
• [2025.07] One paper (on the fairness of image generation systems) has been accepted by Multimedia 2025!
• [2025.06] One paper (on mitigating privacy issues of LLM4Code) has been accepted by ICSE 2026!
• [2025.04] One paper (LLM4Code ecosystem) is accepted by ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology!
• [2024.03] Happy to be the PC Co-Chair of the QUATIC 2025 Security and Privacy (SP) Track.
• [2025.01] One paper (on monitoring RL systems at runtime) is accepted by ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology!
• [2024.12] Happy to be the PC member of ICSE 2026 Technical Track, FSE 2025 Demonstration Track, and ISSTA 2025 Demonstration Track!
• [2024.12] I have defended my PhD thesis and now become Dr. Yang!
• [2024.11] One paper (on prioritizing speech test cases) is accepted by ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology!
• [2024.10] One paper (on greening code LLMs) is accepted by ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology!
• [2024.10] One paper (on infering membership inforamtion of code LLMs) is accepted by IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering!
• [2024.10] I won the SMU Research Staff Excellence Awards🏆, only 4 winners across the whole SMU!
• [2024.09] Our systematic literature review of LLM4Code is accepted by ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology!
• [2024.09] Our paper won the ACM Distinguish Paper Award🏆 from ISSTA 2024!
• [2024.07] I recieved the Distinguish Reviewer Award from Internetware 2024!
• [2024.07] One paper is accepted by ACM ISSTA 2024!
• [2024.06] I'm honored to win the SMU Presidential Fellowship Award🏆 and SMU Dean's List Award🏆!
• [2024.05] One paper is accepted by Software Engineering 2030!
• [2024.04] I'm honored to win the 1st Place in ACM Student Research Competition🏆 in ICSE 2024!
• [2024.04] I'm honored to be promoted to Senior Research Enigneer!
• [2024.03] One paper is accepted by IEEE S&P 2024!
• [2024.01] One paper is accepted by IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering!
• [2023.10] One paper is accepted by SEIS Track of ICSE 2024!
• [2023.11] I'm happy to serve as Junior Program Committee in MSR 2024!
• [2023.10] One paper is accepted by Technical Track of ICSE 2024!
• [2023.07] My father is diagnosed with cancer. I have to support my family and pause research projects for a while. Do take medical screening regularly if you happen to see my webpage.
• [2023.06] One paper is accepted by Technical Track of ICSME 2023!
• [2023.05] One paper is accepted by Technical Track of ISSTA 2023!
• [2023.04] I gave an invited talk at TU Delft, titled "What's beyond the accuracy of code models?
• [2023.03] One paper is accepted by Technical Track of MSR 2023!

Awards & Honors

2026 MSR Outstanding Doctoral Research Award

2025 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award

2025 Distinguished Paper Award, ASE 2025

2025 IEEE Computer Society Best Paper Award

2024 SMU Research Staff Excellence Awards

2024 ACM Distinguished Paper Award, ISSTA 2024

2024 Distinguished Reviewer Award, Internetware

2024 SMU Presidential Fellowship & Dean's List Award

2024 Gold Medal, ACM Student Research Competition, ICSE

2022 Honorable Mention Award, ACSAC

View all awards →

Schedule a Meeting

View my availability on the calendar page.

Book a meeting via Notion Calendar.

Undergrads: Office hours are Monday 2–5 PM. You must email me in advance to reserve a slot. Unreserved time slots will be assigned to other tasks.

Professional Services & Talks

Organizing

• Program Chair, CSER 2026 Spring
• Program Chair, Poisoned Chalice Competition 2026
• General Co-Chair, HumanAISE Workshop, FSE 2026
• Social Media Co-Chair, FSE 2026
• Social Media Co-Chair, Forge 2026
• AI Models / Data Track Co-Chair, EASE 2026
• Security and Privacy Track Co-Chair, QUATIC 2025
• Web Co-Chair, ICSE 2025

Program Committee

ICSE '27, '26, '25 (Shadow) · FSE '26, '25 Demo · ASE '26, '25 · ISSTA '25 Demo · ICSME '26, '25 · Internetware '26, '25, '24 · APSEC '25, '24 · EASE '26, '25 · CASCON '25 · Forge '24 · MSR '24 (Junior), '22 (Shadow) · ECAI '23, ...

Journal Review

Empirical Software Engineering · Communications of the ACM · IEEE TDSC · IEEE TSE · ACM TOSEM · JSEP, ...

View all services →

Invited Talks

• [2026.06] ANGE 2026, ICSA 2026
• [2026.04] MTX 2026, Singapore
• [2026.04] SVM 2026, Brazil
• [2026.03] Waterloo Innovation Forum, Canada
• [2026.01] Peking University, PR China
• [2025.12] CSER 2025 Fall, Canada
• [2025.11] Global Software Technology Summit, Canada
• [2023.04] What's beyond the accuracy of code models? — TU Delft

Funding & Institutional Support

Our work is supported by research funders and institutional partners including the following organizations.

Amii

CIFAR

University of Alberta

NSERC