Purdue CS PhD Student earns Amazon Fellowship for research in AI security

04-11-2025

Kaiyuan Zhang, photo taken by Alisha Willett (Purdue University)

 

Kaiyuan Zhang, a Ph.D. candidate in Purdue University’s Department of Computer Science, has been awarded the prestigious Amazon Fellowship for his research in AI security and privacy. His work focuses on making large language models (LLMs) safer and more responsible by mitigating security and privacy risks.

Receiving the Amazon Fellowship is a significant milestone in Zhang’s research career. “This funding and support from Amazon will enable me to advance my research and contribute meaningfully to the AI and security communities,” Zhang said. “It also serves as motivation to pursue impactful work in this field.”

Zhang specializes in developing methods to secure machine learning models against vulnerabilities. His recent projects include mitigating backdoor attacks in federated learning, analyzing backdoor learning from a theoretical perspective and defending against gradient inversion attacks. His work is enhancing the safety, privacy, and reliability of AI systems.

Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University, co-advised by Professors Ninghui Li and Xiangyu Zhang. His academic journey has been dedicated to exploring the security and privacy challenges in machine learning, with an emphasis on ensuring the trustworthiness of AI systems.

“The Amazon Fellowship not only facilitates collaboration with leading industry experts but also provides access to high-performance computing resources,” Zhang said. “I am eager to leverage this opportunity to make lasting contributions to the field.”

The Amazon Fellowship recognizes outstanding graduate students conducting innovative research in computer science and related fields. By providing unrestricted funding and AWS credits, the program supports the next generation of researchers in advancing scientific breakthroughs.

 

About the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University

Founded in 1962, the Department of Computer Science was created to be an innovative base of knowledge in the emerging field of computing as the first degree-awarding program in the United States. The department continues to advance the computer science industry through research. US News & Reports ranks Purdue CS #8 in computer engineering and #19 and #16 and #18 overall in undergraduate and graduate computer science, respectively. Additionally the program is ranked 6th in cybersecurity, 8th in software engineering, 13th in systems, 15th in programming languages and data analytics, and 18th in theory. Graduates of the program are able to solve complex and challenging problems in many fields. Our consistent success in an ever-changing landscape is reflected in the record undergraduate enrollment, increased faculty hiring, innovative research projects, and the creation of new academic programs. The increasing centrality of computer science in academic disciplines and society, and new research activities—centered around foundations and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning, such as natural language processing, human computer interaction, vision, and robotics, as well as systems and security—are the future focus of the department. cs.purdue.edu