Keyan Guo
I am a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, advised by Dr. Hongxin Hu. My research sits at the intersection of generative AI security, adversarial robustness, and platform safety, with a focus on making large-scale AI systems more trustworthy in deployment.
I welcome research collaborations across AI/ML, cybersecurity, HCI, and the social sciences.
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Research Interests
- Generative AI security and safety
- Adversarial robustness for multimodal models
- Online abuse, harmful meme, and hate content moderation
- AI systems for real-world security and public-good applications
Selected Highlights
- NDSS 2027 paper on defending LLM agents against indirect prompt injection
- ACM CCS 2026 paper on safeguarding multimodal LLMs
- EMNLP 2026 (Findings) paper on a joint security-functionality benchmark for code generation
- CHI 2026 paper on parent-child perspectives in children’s online safety
- EMNLP 2025 paper on hateful video detection with multimodal LLMs
- USENIX Security 2025 paper on defending LLMs against jailbreak attacks
- NDSS 2025 paper on harmful meme understanding and detection
- NDSS 2025 Internet Society Fellow
- USENIX Security 2024 paper on moderating unsafe user-generated content games
- IEEE S&P 2024 paper on online hate moderation with chain-of-thought reasoning
News
- 09/2026 Our paper on how to practically protect AI agents against indirect prompt injection has been accepted by NDSS 2027!
- 08/2026 Our paper on a joint security-functionality evaluation benchmark for LLMs and coding agents was accepted by EMNLP 2026 (Findings)!
- 06/2026 I will serve as a Program Committee member for USENIX Security 2027.
- 05/2026 Our paper on multimodal jailbreak defense was accepted by ACM CCS 2026. See you in the Netherlands!
- 03/2026 I am honored to serve on the IEEE Security and Privacy 2026 Artifact Evaluation Committee.
- 01/2026 Our work Beyond Age-Based Restrictions: Rethinking Children’s Online Safety Through Comparing Parent-Child Perspectives of Risks in User-Generated Content was accepted to CHI 2026.
- 09/2025 Our research on automatic hate video detection was accepted to EMNLP 2025.
- 07/2025 I joined the NDSS 2026 Artifact Evaluation Committee.
- 05/2025 I served on the ASONAM 2025 Program Committee.
- 02/2025 I presented I know what you MEME! Understanding and Detecting Harmful Memes with Multimodal Large Language Models at NDSS 2025.
- 02/2025 Our work on detecting and mitigating jailbreak attacks for large language models was accepted to USENIX Security 2025.
- 01/2025 I was selected as an Internet Society Fellowship recipient for NDSS 2025.
Earlier news
- 12/2024 I received the CSE Best Research Project (PhD) Award at the University at Buffalo.
- 11/2024 I joined the artifact technical program committee for the 34th USENIX Security Symposium.
- 10/2024 Our work on harmful meme detection was accepted to NDSS 2025.
- 10/2024 Our work on AI-cybersecurity education with cyberharassment detection labs was accepted to CISSE 2024.
- 10/2024 Our work on an AI-centered social cybersecurity education platform was accepted to CISSE 2024.
- 10/2024 Our study on understanding cyberbullying images was accepted to ICMLA 2024.
- 08/2024 I presented Moderating Illicit Online Image Promotion for Unsafe User-Generated Content Games Using Large Vision-Language Models at the 33rd USENIX Security Symposium.
- 07/2024 I received a USENIX Conference Student Grant.
- 06/2024 I presented the tutorial Machine Learning Based Online Abuse Defense: Platform, Research, and Hands-on Labs at ICWSM 2024.
- 05/2024 Our work on unsafe user-generated content was selected as a poster at the 45th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.
- 04/2024 We had an accepted position statement at a CHI 2024 Workshop.
- 04/2024 Our ASONAM 2023 paper on COVID-19-related online hate propagation through hateful memes was selected for the ACM Showcase on Kudos.
- 03/2024 Our paper Moderating Illicit Online Image Promotion for Unsafe User-Generated Content Games Using Large Vision-Language Models was accepted to USENIX Security 2024.
- 12/2023 I won the 2023 Annual CSE Poster Competition and received the CSE Best AI Poster Award at the University at Buffalo.
- 12/2023 I presented An Investigation of Large Language Models for Real-World Hate Speech Detection at ICMLA 2023.
- 10/2023 Our paper Moderating New Waves of Online Hate with Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Large Language Models was accepted to IEEE S&P 2024.
- 10/2023 Our paper An Investigation of Large Language Models for Real-World Hate Speech Detection was accepted to ICMLA 2023.
- 09/2023 I presented Understanding and Measuring Robustness of Vision and Language Multimodal Models at SKM 2023.
- 09/2023 Our paper on COVID-19-related online hate propagation through hateful memes was accepted to ASONAM 2023.
- 08/2023 Our paper Understanding and Measuring Robustness of Vision and Language Multimodal Models was accepted to SKM 2023.
- 08/2023 Our paper Exploring Vulnerabilities in Voice Command Skills for Connected Vehicles was accepted to EAI SmartSP 2023.
- 04/2023 I presented Mitigating Online Hate in the Evolving Cyber Environment: Rapid Adaptation and Moderation of Emerging Threats at GLSD 2023.
- 11/2022 Our paper on the generalizability of hateful memes detection models against COVID-19-related hateful memes was accepted to ICMLA 2022.
- 11/2022 I received the CSE Best Graduate Teaching Award at the University at Buffalo.
- 11/2022 We presented the demo paper Understanding the Effects of Paint Colors on LiDAR Point Cloud Intensities at AutoSec 2022.
Collaborators
Faculty Collaborators
Dr. Hongxin Hu, Dr. Ziming Zhao, Dr. Nishant Vishwamitra, Dr. Long Cheng, Dr. Guo Freeman, Dr. Qian Wang, Dr. Juan Wang, Dr. Yongkai Wu, Dr. Xiaohong Yuan, Dr. Chunming Qiao, Dr. Feng Luo, Dr. Jeannette Wade
Ph.D. Student Collaborators
Ebuka Okpala, Feng Wei, Foad Hajiaghajani, Gaoxiang Liu, Isabelle Ondracek, Song Liao, Md. Armanuzzaman Tomal, Mohammed Aldeen, Qiqing Huang, Ruchi Panchanadikar, Rupam Patir, Wenbo Ding, Xi Tan, Yang Hu, Yong Zhuang, Shenyi Zhang, Zheyuan Ma
Sorted alphabetically by first name.
Undergraduate and Graduate Student Collaborators
Amardhruva Narasimha Prabhu, Ayush Utkarsh, Pal Dave, Radhika Singh, Shaik Sabiha
Sorted alphabetically by first name.
High School Student Collaborators
Alexander Hu (now at UCLA), David Cong (now at Duke University), Helen Qin, Ishan Ajay, Jaden Mu (now at Carnegie Mellon University), Johnson Chen, Wentai Zhao (now at the University of Michigan)
Sorted alphabetically by first name.