Chen honored with PFW Outstanding Research Award

Along with the positives artificial intelligence potentially brings to society, there are also increased risks coming from those who want to use the advances for malicious purposes. Those intentions require others to counter and serve as defenders.

Zesheng Chen, an associate professor of computer science who specializes in machine learning security, is one of those key defenders. To recognize his expertise, Chen was honored with the Purdue University Fort Wayne Outstanding Research Award for 2024-25 during a ceremony on Friday.

The Outstanding Research Award honors a tenured, full-time faculty member for outstanding performance in the area of research, scholarly activity, or creative endeavor. The honoree must have achieved an exceptional record of contributions to the body of knowledge or creative works in his or her discipline-and must also have had great success communicating that information to a wide audience. Chen was chosen for the honor by the ORA committee, which consisted of past recipients and his peers. The award is sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs.

Over the course of his academic career, Chen has published 56 peer-reviewed research articles, 23 journal articles, and 32 conference papers. He also serves on the editorial boards of two international journals.

"Dr. Chen without any doubts deserves the award for his exceptional research quality, impact, and collaborative approach," said Adolfo Coronado, chair of the Department of Computer Science. "He addresses pressing issues in his field, fosters a collaborative environment, and involves students [by providing] invaluable hands-on experience and mentorship. His commitment to excellence, collaboration, and student involvement makes him a standout researcher in our department and the university."

Chen's love of research was heightened while studying for his master's and doctorate degrees at Georgia Tech, where he became a leading voice in computer network security and an expert in self-propagating program worms.

"This worm is able to learn the environment and become smarter and more malicious," Chen said. "They can grow faster than the classic forms of the worms. Sometimes I study the attacker so I can see what parts of the security they may attack. I can sometimes predict where they will go and then avoid potential problems."

An exceptional table tennis player, Chen often compares his work to athletic and gaming competitions, studying opponents' schemes and tendencies to counter and then attack with his programs.

"It's fun to come up with new strategies," Chen said. "There are two players trying to beat each other, and my students and I are taking a side."

But his strategies have real-world implications, especially since Chen's focus changed to artificial intelligence security in 2017. As a college student, he was fascinated as the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. A devotee of the Go game, which is much more complex than chess, Chen said he believed a computer program would never be able to defeat a human master of the game.

When the artificial intelligence system AlphaGo defeated the world's top-ranked Go player in 2016, it changed Chen's life-and then his research.

"When I was a kid, I played the Go game a lot and thought one day I might become a professional, but it didn't work out for me," Chen said. "When AlphaGo beat the game, it totally changed my mind that AI is the future."

Chen has concentrated on speaker verification systems, which are crucial for securing online banking, Internet of Things devices, and employing human voice biometrics to identify users because the state-of-the-art systems rely on machine learning models that are susceptible to adversarial attacks.

"A lot of people don't realize how critical this issue is," Chen said. "AI is so hot right now, but it is not so secure. That is totally fine in some areas that are not related to high security, but we need to be cautious because there are attackers who are trying to make the systems fail.

"Sometimes we try to predict what is ahead, or maybe what the worst-case scenario might be, and how we should respond. We hope we can predict correctly and develop the tools to defend against these attacks."

Chen came to Fort Wayne in 2009 as a limited-term lecturer to be with his wife, Chao Chen, professor of computer engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. From 2012 to 2015, he worked in private industry before returning to the university.

"My boss gave me a counteroffer that was very nice because they didn't want to lose me," Chen said. "I appreciated it, but I like teaching students; plus I like the academic freedom to research what I wanted. I felt if I came here, I could choose the research subjects I wanted to go for. This was my calling, and I'm much happier here."

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