Xiao Yuan's CV

Education

• Joint Ph.D. in Compute Science, School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Nov. 2024-Nov. 2025 (Supervised by Professor Jinsong Dong, with academic collaboration and guidance from Professor Jun Sun, Singapore Management University)
• Ph.D. in Software Institute, Nanjing University, 2021-(expected: Sep. 2026) (Supervised by Professor Zhenyu Chen and Associate Professor Chunrong Fang, with academic collaboration and guidance from Assistant Professor Shiqing Ma, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• B.S. in Mathematics Institute, Sun Yat-sen University, 2017-2021 (Supervised by Professor Xianping Guo)

Research Interest

• Robustness Verification for Neural Networks
• Watermark for Large Models

Publications

^† Co-first authors; ^* Corresponding authors.

DeCoMa: Detecting and Purifying Code Dataset Watermarks through Dual Channel Code Abstraction

Yuan Xiao, Yuchen Chen, Shiqing Ma, Haocheng Huang, Chunrong Fang^*, Yanwei Chen, Weisong Sun, Yunfeng Zhu, Xiaofang Zhang, Zhenyu Chen^*

International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

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Tightening Robustness Verification of MaxPool-based Neural Networks via Minimizing the Over-Approximation Zone

Yuan Xiao, Yuchen Chen, Shiqing Ma, Chunrong Fang^*, Tongtong Bai, Mingzheng Gu, Yuxin Cheng, Yanwei Chen, Zhenyu Chen^*

Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

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Towards General Robustness Verification of MaxPool-based Convolutional Neural Networks via Tightening Linear Approximation

Yuan Xiao, Shiqing Ma, Juan Zhai, Chunrong Fang^*, Jinyuan Jia, Zhenyu Chen^*

Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

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Train in Vain: Functionality-Preserving Poisoning to Prevent Unauthorized Use of Code Datasets

Yuan Xiao, Yuchen Chen, Jiaming Wang, Wei Song, Jun Sun, Shiqing Ma, Yanzhou Mu, Juan Zhai, Chunrong Fang^*, Jin Song Dong, Zhenyu Chen^*

Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics

DuCodeMark: Dual-Purpose Code Dataset Watermarking via Style-Aware Watermark–Poison Design

Yuchen Chen^†, Yuan Xiao^†, Chunrong Fang^*, Zhenyu Chen^*, Baowen Xu^*

Proceedings of the ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

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PuzzleMark: Implicit Jigsaw Learning for Robust Code Dataset Watermarking in Neural Code Completion Models

Haocheng Huang, Yuchen Chen, Weisong Sun, Peizhuo Lv, Yuan Xiao, Chunrong Fang, Yang Liu, Xiaofang Zhang^*

Proceedings of the ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

Eliminating Backdoors in Neural Code Models for Secure Code Understanding

Weisong Sun, Yuchen Chen, Chunrong Fang^*, Yebo Feng, Yuan Xiao, An Guo, Quanjun Zhang, Zhenyu Chen^*, Baowen Xu, Yang Liu

The ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering

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CooTest: An Automated Testing Approach for V2X Communication Systems

An Guo, Xinyu Gao, Zhenyu Chen^*, Yuan Xiao, Jiakai Liu, Xiuting Ge, Weisong Sun, Chunrong Fang^*

The ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

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Securing Code Understanding: Detecting Natural Backdoor Vulnerability in Code Language Models

Yuchen Chen, Weisong Sun, Haocheng Huang, Yuan Xiao, Chunrong Fang, Yiran Zhang, Tingting Xu, Zhenpeng Chen, An Guo, Peizhuo Lv, Xiaofang Zhang, Zhenyu Chen, Yang Liu, Baowen Xu

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

Security Risks for LLM-based Code Generation

Yuchen Chen, Wei Cheng, Yuan Xiao, Zhou Yang, Weifeng Sun, Chunrong Fang, Xiang Chen, Baowen Xu, David Lo, Zhenyu Chen

ACM International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

Breaking Customized LLMs for Coding: Automated Red Teaming for Instruction Backdoor Attacks

Yuchen Chen, Wei Cheng, Yuan Xiao, Weisong Sun, Chunrong Fang, Yang Liu, Zhenyu Chen, Baowen Xu

Proceedings of the 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering

Projects

• Project Partcipant: Involved in the industrialization of Construction and Quality Assurance for Safety-Critical Software Systems, 2024(Vertical Research Project: CJGJZD20200617103001003)
• Project Partcipant: SMARTLINK Internet of Vehicles Load Analysis System Development Project, 2023
• Project Partcipant: The population measurement of Huadu district Project, 2022

Awards

• Outstanding Doctoral Graduate, Nanjing University, 2026
• Huawei Scholarship, School Level, 2025
• Model Graduate Student, School Level, 2025
• Nanjing University Graduate Scholarship, School Level, (2021-2025)
• Outstanding Graduate Student, School Level, 2022
• Second Prize of Sun Yat-sen University Undergraduate Scholarship, School Level, 2021
• Third Prizes of Sun Yat-sen University Undergraduate Scholarship, School Level, (2017-2020)
• The National Second Prize of the National Mathematical Modeling Competition, National Level, 2019

Teaching

• Teaching Assistant: Foundation of Data Science (2021-2024)

Service and leadership

• Reviewer: AAAI 2023, NeurIPS (2024, 2025, 2026), ICLR (2025, 2026), ICML 2025, TSE 2026
• Sub-Reviewer/External-Reviewer: TASE 2025, AAAI 2025, USENIX 2026, CVPR 2026

Patents

• Zhenyu Chen, Yuan Xiao, Ran Chen. Robustness verification method for load prediction models based on linear approximation. Chinese Patent ZL2024102921461.