I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the University of South Florida (USF).

I received my Ph.D. degree from the Department of Computer Science at Florida State University (FSU), supervised by Prof. Jie Yang. Prior to joining FSU, I received M.S. from the School of Electronics and Information Engineering at Beihang University.

My research interests mainly include mobile computing and cybersecurity.

Email: yiliren[at]usf.edu

Openings

I am looking for self-motivated Ph.D. students to join my group.

Candidates with research experiences in wireless sensing, network/mobile systems, signal processing, machine learning, and cybersecurity will be given favorable consideration.

If you are interested, please feel free to send me an email with your CV, transcripts, TOEFL scores, and any other relevant materials that you believe would support your application.

Research Interests

Mobile Computing: Wireless Sensing, Mobile Healthcare, Human-Computer Interaction Applications, Smart Home and Internet of Things (IoT) Applications.

Cybersecurity: Mobile Authentication, Person Identification, Novel Biometrics, Smart Home and Internet of Things (IoT) Security.

News

07/2024 Our work on “WiFi-based Vital Signs Monitoring” has been accepted by IMWUT/UbiComp.

04/2024 Invited talk at Florida State University.

01/2024 I served as Technical Program Committee member of INFOCOM 2024 Poster.

01/2024 Our work on “Multi-person 3D Human Mesh Estimation using WiFi” has been accepted by IMWUT/UbiComp.

08/2023 I joined the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of South Florida!

05/2023 I defended my Ph.D. dissertation!

02/2023 Our work on “3D Human Mesh Construction using WiFi” was covered by: Tech Xplore, News8Plus, etc.

10/2022 Our work on “3D Human Mesh Construction using WiFi” has been accepted by ACM SenSys 2022.

10/2022 Our work on “Robust Person Re-identification Using WiFi” has been accepted by USENIX Security 2023.

04/2022 I received the Graduate Student Research Award in the Department of Computer Science at Florida State University.

04/2022 Our work on “3D Human Pose Estimation Using WiFi” has been accepted by ACM UbiComp 2022.

04/2022 Our work on “Earable Authentication via Acoustic Toothprint” has been accepted by ACM UbiComp 2022.

04/2022 Our survey paper entitled “Commodity WiFi Sensing in 10 Years: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities” has been accepted by the IEEE Internet of Things Journal.

Media Coverage

Winect: 3D Human Pose Tracking for Free-form Activity Using Commodity WiFi was covered by: Tech Xplore, News8Plus, Lifeboat, etc.

ToothSonic: Earable Authentication via Acoustic Toothprint was covered by: Unite.AI, Gigazine, etc.

Wi-Mesh: A WiFi Vision-based Approach for 3D Human Mesh Construction was covered by: Tech Xplore, News8Plus, etc.

Services

Technical Program Committee (TPC) Membership: IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) 2024 Poster, 2025 International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC): AI and Machine Learning for Communications and Networking

Reviewer for journals: Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking, ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare, IEEE Transactions on Computers, Journal of the International Measurement Confederation, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications - Positioning and Sensing Over Wireless Networks, ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, IMWUT/UbiComp, IEEE Sensors Journal, IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, Sensors; also helped in reviewing papers of journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Communications Letters.

Reviewer for conferences: 2025 International Conference on Computing Networking and Communications (ICNC): AI and Machine Learning for Communications and Networking, MobileHCI 2023, CSAE 2023; also helped in reviewing papers of conferences, such as MobiSys 2023, USENIX Security 2023, ICDCS 2022, ESORICS 2022/2021, ASIACSS 2023/2022/2021, INFOCOM 2022/2021, ACSAC 2021, CNS 2022/2021, DCOSS 2021/2020, WiSec 2021/2020, IWQoS 2021/2020, ICCCN 2021, MSN 2019.