Zhengxiong Li

Assistant Professor (Google Scholar)
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Colorado Denver

Office: 1380 Lawrence St. Center, LW-834, Denver. CO 80217-3364
Email: zhengxiong dot li at ucdenver dot edu

Dr. Li is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver). He founds and directs the META (Mobile, Emerging Technologies & Applications) Lab. He has published over 60 research papers on top CS conferences and journals (e.g., IROS, MobiCom, MobiSys, SenSys, UbiComp, Oakland, CCS, NDSS, HOST, WWW), co-authored one book, and is a named inventor on many international and U.S. patents. He received a Ph.D. degree from the University at Buffalo, SUNY (UB). In addition, he received both an M.S. degree and a B.S. degree from Hangzhou Dianzi University (HDU) (both with honors), China.

Dr. Li is on the committee at the Denver Science Fair for K-12 education outreach.

News

May, 2025 CU SPUR starts! Excited to mentor and support undergraduate student research in Colorado.
May, 2025 Denver 7 recently featured our LLM-based phish email detection and analysis work in their media coverage.
May, 2025 Ashlynn and Deveyn were recognized with the EURēCA! Grant 2025 and received the People’s Choice Award at the 2025 RaCAS Symposium at CU Denver .
Nov, 2024 Lauched Cyber Nachos, an open-source platform designed to drive innovation and development in the AI Robotics, with partial support from the National Science Foundation (NSF)!
Nov, 2024 Served as a general co-chair in The 7th International Workshop on Physics Embedded AI Solutions in Mobile Computing (Picasso 2024), co-located with ACM MobiCom 2024.
May, 2024 CU SPUR starts! Excited to mentor and support undergraduate student research in Colorado.
May, 2024 Welcome Submission! Honored to collaborate with Dr. Chenhan Xu as the guest editor for the special issue titled “Innovative Applications of mmWave Sensors” in MDPI Sensors.
Feb, 2024 Newsweek recently featured our mobile security work, PrintListener, in their media coverage.
Jan, 2024 Zheshuo and I work as volunteer judges in the 2023-2024 season of the CoorsTek Denver Metro Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
Sep, 2023 Present and outreach our mmWave security work in the 2023 International Mechatronics Conference and Expo.
Sep, 2023 Served as the mentor in the CU Denver EURēCA! Program for undergraduate research and creative endeavors.
May, 2023 Worked as the volunteer judge in the 2023 Engineering Capstone Expo at CU Denver.
Apr, 2023 Honored to be selected as a 2023 mHTI Scholar (https://mhti.md2k.org/index.php/scholars/2022-scholars-2)!
Apr, 2023 Worked as a volunteer in the Spring 2023 Engineering Open House at CU Denver.
Mar, 2023 Received the Google Cloud Training Credits Award. Thanks, Google!
Mar, 2023 Won the Inaugural Coleman Institute Translational Research Award! Thanks, CU!
Feb, 2023 Worked as the volunteer judge in the 2022-2023 season of the CoorsTek Denver Metro Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
Nov, 2022 Won the Best Paper Award Candidate and Best Poster Award Runner-up at ACM SenSys 2022.
Jul, 2022 Won the Research Award from Meta 2022 Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Thanks, Meta!
Jul, 2022 Won the Best Student Paper Award in IEEE International Conference on Health Informatics (ICHI) 2022.
Jul, 2022 Serve as a general co-chair in the 5th International Workshop on Combining Physical and Data-Driven Knowledge in Ubiquitous Computing (CPD 2022, https://ubicomp-cpd.com/2022.html), co-located with UbiComp 2022. Looking forward to see you in Atlanta, GA on September!
Jun, 2022 Serve as a panelist to review proposals in NSF 2022.
Jan, 2022 Work as the volunteer judge with Xingyu in the 2021-2022 season of the CoorsTek Denver Metro Regional Science and Engineering Fair to support academic STEM development in local middle and high schools.
Oct, 2021 Our team won the runner-up award in the 2021 IEEE Healthcare Summit (IHS) COVID-19 Data Hackathon (Sensor Informatics Track).
Oct, 2021 Gave an invited talk on “Research, a bravest and most romantic job” at UB CSE Distinguished Alumni Series.
Sep, 2021 META lab is looking for motivated students (Undergraduate/Ph.D.). Please drop me an email if you have any interests.

Selected Publications

Papers in Denver.
Supervised students/scholars are underlined.
  1. IROS 2025
    VRobotix: A Scalable and Cost-Effective Virtual-Reality-Based Robotic Manipulation Dataset Generation Framework
    Xinmin Fang, Zheshuo Li, Lingfeng Tao, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2025
  2. IROS 2025
    DexPour: Effective and Efficient High-DoF Robotic Hand Liquid Pouring via Hierarchical Reward with Approximated Proxy Abstraction
    Xinmin Fang, Lingfeng Tao, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2025
  3. IROS 2025
    Bio-Skin: A Cost-Effective Thermostatic Tactile Sensor with Multi-Modal Force and Temperature Detection
    Haorao Guo, Haoyang Wang, Zhengxiong Li, and Lingfeng Tao,
    In Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2025
  4. IROS 2025
    Adaptive Anomaly Recovery for Telemanipulation: A Diffusion Model Approach to Vision-Based Tracking
    Haoyang Wang, Haorao Guo, Zhengxiong Li, and Lingfeng Tao,
    In Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2025
  5. CNS 2025
    PlasTrack: Path-Independent Plasma-Induced Attacks on mmWave Sensing Tracking
    Zheshuo Li, Lingfeng Tao, Yidan Hu, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security 2025
  6. HOST 2025 Best Paper
    Finalist
    FanBleed: Stealing Your Secrets via Observing Your Cooling Fan
    Sisheng Liang, Zhengxiong Li, Zihao Zhan, and Zhenkai Zhang,
    In Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust 2025
  7. MobiSys 2025 Best Artifact
    Award
    Honorable
    Mention
    You Only Render Once: Enhancing Energy and Computation Efficiency of Mobile Virtual Reality
    Xingyu Chen, Xinmin Fang, Shuting Zhang, Xinyu Zhang, Liang He, and Zhengxiong Li
    2025
  8. Sensor 2025
    A Comprehensive Survey of Research Trends in mmWave Technologies for Medical Applications
    Xiaoyu Zhang, Chuhui Liu, Yanda Cheng, Zhengxiong Li, Chenhan Xu, Chuqin Huang, Ye Zhan, Wei Bo, Jun Xia, and Wenyao Xu,
    Sensors 2025
  9. SenSys 2025
    CaphandAuth: Robust and Anti-spoofing Hand Authentication via COTS Capacitive Touchscreens
    Xiaojing Zhu, Man Zhou, Xiaoxiao Qiao, Zijian Ling, Qin Liu, Houzhen Wang, Xiaojing Ma, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems 2025
  10. SenSys Sensor
    S&P Workshop
    2025     Best Paper
    Award
    mmVanish: Extending the Vanish Attack for Multi-Radar Exploitation of mmWave Sensing with Meta-material Tags
    Xinmin Fang, Hailu Xu, Lingfeng Tao, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Security and Privacy of Sensing Systems 2025
  11. SenSys
    Poster 2025
    Poster Abstract: Understanding IoT Security Awareness Disparities Between CS and Non-CS Students
    Xinmin Fang, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems 2025
  12. SenSys
    HumanSys
    Workshop 2025
    Towards a Lightweight Platform for Human-Robot Interaction in Federated Edge and IoT Environments
    Simon Zhang, Zhengxiong Li, Xin Qin, and Hailu Xu,
    In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Human-Centered Sensing, Modeling, and Intelligent Systems 2025
  13. SenSys
    HumanSys
    Workshop 2025
    Through-dressing Wound Monitoring Based on The mmWave Sensor
    Xiaoyu Zhang, Zhengxiong Li, Yanda Cheng, Chenhan Xu, Chuqin Huang, Emma Zhang, Ye Zhan, Wei Bo, Jun Xia, and Wenyao Xu,
    In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Human-Centered Sensing, Modeling, and Intelligent Systems 2025
  14. IoTJ 2025
    mmSkin: An Over-Gauze Wound Assessment System Using Radio Frequency Technologies
    Xiaoyu Zhang, Zhengxiong Li, Yanda Cheng, Chenhan Xu, Chuqin Huang, Emma Zhang, Ye Zhan, Wei Bo, Jun Xia, and Wenyao Xu,
    IEEE Internet of Things Journal 2025
  15. IoTJ 2025
    mmHand: Towards Pixel-Level-Accuracy Hand Localization Using A Single Commodity mmWave Device
    Xiaoyu Zhang, Zhengxiong Li, Chenhan Xu, Luchuan Song, Huining Li, Hongfei Xue, Yingxiao Wu, and Wenyao Xu,
    IEEE Internet of Things Journal 2025
  1. MobiCom
    Picasso 2024
    MetaGlucose: Low-cost and Practical Cold Liquid Glucose Level Measurement for Health
    Yilin Song, Xinmin Fang, Zheshuo Li, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom Picasso Workshop 2024) 2024
  2. MobiCom
    Picasso 2024
    A Black-Box Approach for Quantifying Leakage of Trace-Based Correlated Data
    Shafizur Rahman Seeam, Zhengxiong Li, and Yidan Hu,
    In Proceedings of the 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom Picasso Workshop 2024) 2024
  3. CNS 2024
    Multi-sensor Data Privacy Protection with Adaptive Privacy Budget for IoT Systems
    Xinyi Liu, Ye Zheng, Zhengxiong Li, and Yidan Hu,
    In IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS) 2024
  4. NDSS 2024
    PrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction Sound
    Man Zhou, Shuao Su, Qian Wang, Li Qi, Yuting Zhou, Xiaojing Ma, and Zhengxiong Li
    In The Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2024
  1. TMC 2023
    FingerPattern: Securing Pattern Lock Via Fingerprint-Dependent Friction Sound
    Man Zhou, Yuting Zhou, Shuao Su, Qian Wang, Qi Li, Shengshan Hu, Chunwu Yu, and Zhengxiong Li
    IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing 2023
  2. CCS 2023
    TileMask: A Passive-reflection-based Attack against mmWave Radar Object Detection in Autonomous Driving
    Yi Zhu, Chenglin Miao, Hongfei Xue, Zhengxiong Li, Yunnan Yu, Wenyao Xu, Lu Su, and Chunming Qiao,
    In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM signal conference on computer and communications security 2023
  3. NDSS 2023
    MetaWave: Attacking mmWave Sensing with Meta-material-enhanced Tags
    Xingyu Chen, Zhengxiong Li, Baicheng Chen, Yi Zhu, Chris Xiaoxuan Lu, Zhengyu Peng, Feng Lin, Wenyao Xu, Kui Ren, and Chunming Qiao,
    In The 30th Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2023
  4. SmartSP 2023
    mmFingerprint: A New Application Fingerprinting Technique via mmWave Sensing and Its Use in Rowhammer Detection
    Sisheng Liang, Zhengxiong Li, Chenxu Jiang, Linke Guo, and Zhenkai Zhang,
    In EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems and Smart Vehicles 2023
  5. UIST 2023
    WavoID: Robust and Secure Multi-modal User Identification via mmWave-voice Mechanism
    Tiantian Liu, Feng Lin, Chao Wang, Chenhan Xu, Xiaoyu Zhang, Zhengxiong Li, Wenyao Xu, Ming-Chun Huang, and Kui Ren,
    In the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology 2023
  6. TOSN 2023
    Wavoice: A mmWave-assisted Noise-resistant Speech Recognition System
    Tiantian Liu, Chao Wang, Zhengxiong Li, Ming-Chun Huang, Wenyao Xu, and Feng Lin,
    ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks 2023
  7. MobiCom 2023
    TherapyPal: Towards a Privacy-Preserving Companion Diagnostic Tool based on Digital Symptomatic Phenotyping
    Huining Li, Xiaoye Qian, Ruokai Ma, Chenhan Xu, Zhengxiong Li, Dongmei Li, Feng Lin, Ming-Chun Huang, and Wenyao Xu,
    In Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking 2023
  8. UbiComp 2023
    SmartASL: " Point-of-Care" Comprehensive ASL Interpreter Using Wearables
    Yincheng Jin, Shibo Zhang, Yang Gao, Xuhai Xu, Seokmin Choi, Zhengxiong Li, Henry J Adler, and Zhanpeng Jin,
    Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies 2023
  9. UbiComp 2023
    NeuralGait: Assessing Brain Health using Your Smartphone
    Huining Li, Huan Chen, Chenhan Xu, Zhengxiong Li, Hanbin Zhang, Xiaoye Qian, Dongmei Li, and Wenyao Xu,
    In International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing 2023
  10. IUI 2023
    TransASL: A Smart Glass based Comprehensive ASL Recognizer in Daily Life
    Yincheng Jin, Seokmin Choi, Yang Gao, Jiyang Li, Zhengxiong Li, and Zhanpeng Jin,
    In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces 2023
  1. Cloud 2022
    Towards an Efficient Client Selection System for Federated Learning
    Guanyu Ding, Zhengxiong Li, Yusen Wu, Xiaokun Yang, Mehrdad Aliasgari, and Hailu Xu,
    In Cloud Computing–CLOUD 2022: 15th International Conference, Held as Part of the Services Conference Federation, SCF 2022, Honolulu, HI, USA, December 10–14, 2022, Proceedings 2022
  2. SenSys 2022 Best Paper
    Award Candidate
    Hearing Heartbeat from Voice: Towards Next Generation Voice-User Interfaces with Cardiac Sensing Functions
    Chenhan Xu, Tianyu Chen, Huining Li, Alexander Gherardi, Michelle Weng, Zhengxiong Li, and Wenyao Xu,
    In Proceedings of the 20th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems 2022
  3. UbiComp 2022
    Reliable Digital Forensics in the Air: Exploring An RF-based Drone Identification System
    Zhengxiong Li*, Baicheng Chen*, Xingyu Chen, Chenhan Xu, Yuyang Chen, Feng Lin, Changzhi Li, Karthik Dantu, Kui Ren, and Wenyao Xu,
    In International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing 2022
  4. UbiComp 2022
    EarCommand: “Hearing” Your Silent Speech Commands In Ear
    Yincheng Jin, Yang Gao, Xuhai Xu, Seokmin Choi, Jiyang Li, Feng Liu, Zhengxiong Li, and Zhanpeng Jin,
    In International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing 2022
  5. UbiComp 2022
    MSLife Digital Behavioral Phenotyping of Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms in the Wild using Wearables and Graph-Based Statistical Analysis
    Gabriel Guo, Hanbin Zhang, Liuyi Yao, Huining Li, Chenhan Xu, Zhengxiong Li, and Wenyao Xu,
    In International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing 2022
  6. MobiCom 2022
    mmEve: Eavesdropping on Smartphone’s Earpiece via COTS mmWave Device
    Chao Wang, Feng Lin, Tiantian Liu, Kaidi Zheng, Zhibo Wang, Zhengxiong Li, Ming-chun Huang, Wenyao Xu, and Kui Ren,
    In Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking 2022
  7. MobiSys 2022
    EarHealth: an earphone-based acoustic otoscope for detection of multiple ear diseases in daily life
    Yincheng Jin, Yang Gao, Xiaotao Guo, Jun Wen, Zhengxiong Li, and Zhanpeng Jin,
    In Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services 2022
  8. Scientific
    Reports 2022
    Exploring Racial and Gender Disparities in Voice Biometrics
    Xingyu Chen*, Zhengxiong Li*, Srirangaraj Setlur, and Wenyao Xu,
    In Scientific Reports 2022
    Link
  9. ICHI 2022 Best Student
    Paper Award
    The Visual Accelerometer: A High-fidelity Optic-to-Inertial Transformation Framework for Wearable Health Computing
    Chenhan Xu, Huining Li, Zhengxiong Li, Xingyu Chen, Aditya Singh Rathore, Hanbin Zhang, Kun Wang, and Wenyao Xu,
    In IEEE International Conference on Health Informatics 2022
  10. Smart Health
    Privacy computing using deep compression learning techniques for neural decoding
    Huining Li, Huan Chen, Chenhan Xu, Anarghya Das, Xingyu Chen, Zhengxiong Li, Jian Xiao, Ming-Chun Huang, and Wenyao Xu,
    Smart Health 2022
  11. NDSS 2022
    SpiralSpy: Exploring a Stealthy and Practical Covert Channel to Attack Air-gapped Computing Devices via mmWave Sensing
    Zhengxiong Li*, Baicheng Chen*, Xingyu Chen, Huining Li, Chenhan Xu, Chris Xiaoxuan Lu, Feng Lin, Kui Ren, and Wenyao Xu,
    In The Network and Distributed System Security Symposium 2022
  12. NDSS 2022
    FakeGuard: Exploring haptic response to mitigate the vulnerability in commercial fingerprint anti-spoofing
    Aditya Rathore*, Yijie Shen*, Chenhan Xu, Jacob Snyderman, Jinsong Han, Fan Zhang, Zhengxiong Li, Feng Lin, Wenyao Xu, and Kui Ren,
    In The Network and Distributed System Security Symposium 2022
  1. CNS 2021
    Voice Doppelganger Susceptibility among Racial and Gender Groups: IEEE CNS 21 Poster
    Emily Wu, Zhengxiong Li, and Wenyao Xu,
    In 2021 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS) 2021
  2. CNS 2021
    Exploring Demographic Effects on Speaker Verification
    Sophie Si, Zhengxiong Li, and Wenyao Xu,
    In 2021 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS) 2021
  3. SenSys 2021
    Poster Abstract: Exploring an Extensible Children Game Framework based on Augmented Reality Building Blocks
    Xingyu Chen, Xinmin Fang, Wenchuan Wei, Wenyao Xu, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 19th Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems 2021
  4. SenSys 2021
    Poster Abstract: Enhanced Virtual Reality: Exploring an Immersive and Realistic Virtual Reality Training for Nursing
    Xinmin Fang, Xingyu Chen, Wenyao Xu, and Zhengxiong Li
    In Proceedings of the 19th Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems 2021