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Xinyue (Vera) Shen

PhD Candidate

CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security

Email  /  CV  /  Scholar  /  GitHub  /  Twitter  /  LinkedIn  /  🔊Feel free to call me Xinyue (pronounced "Shin-Yueh") or Vera.

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Welcome! I'm a PhD candidate at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, advised by Michael Backes and Yang Zhang. Starting fall 2026, I will join the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo as an Assistant Professor and a member of the Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) group.

My research interests lie in Trustworthy AI, specifically focusing on three directions:

🔍 AI Misuse in the Wild
Discovering real-world AI misuse
such as jailbreaks, misused agents, and harmful skills.
🛡️ AI Security and Safety
Algorithmically mitigating AI-driven harms
including hate speech, unsafe images, model bias, and deepfakes.
🌐 AI in Society
Identifying risks in the broader AI ecosystem
like prompt marketplaces and agent OSNs.

My research has been acknowledged by Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, and covered in media outlets including New Scientist, Deutschlandfunk Nova. My work has been integrated into security evaluation pipelines of major AI systems (e.g., Nvidia's Garak, OpenAI's GPT-4.5/o3-mini/o1), with 3K+ GitHub stars and 89K+ HuggingFace downloads.

I am looking for highly motivated PhD/research-based master students to join my group! If you are interested, please email me (xinyue.shen@uwaterloo.ca) with your CV and list me as a potential advisor in your application.

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Selected Awards & Honors

  • Best Machine Learning and Security Paper, Cybersecurity Award, 2025
  • Machine Learning and Systems Rising Star, MLCommons, 2025
  • KAUST Rising Star in AI, KAUST, 2025 (7.8%)
  • Heidelberg Laureate Forum Young Researcher, 2024
  • Abbe Grant, Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung Foundation, 2024
  • Outstanding Popular Science Work Award, China Science Writers Association, 2024
  • Outstanding Student of UESTC, 2019 (0.2%)
  • Valedictorian, UESTC, 2019
  • First Prize, Intel National College Student Software Competition, 2017 (2.0%)
  • Excellent Volunteer, National Games for Persons with Disabilities & National Special Olympics Games, 2015

Service

  • Program Committee: USENIX Security (2025), ACL (2025, 2026), ICWSM (2024, 2025, 2026, 2027), SaTML (2025, 2026), AISec (2024, 2025), COLM (2026)
  • Poster Program Committee: IEEE S&P (2023, 2024, 2025), USENIX Security (2024)
  • Artifact Evaluation Committee: ACM CCS (2024)
  • Journal Reviewers: Nature Human Behaviour, IEEE S&P Magazine, Pattern Recognition, TIFS, TOPS, TSE
  • Session Chair: USENIX Security (2025)
  • Organizing and Chairing: LAMPS workshop @ ACM CCS (2024)
Copyright © Xinyue (Vera) Shen