I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, I was a postdoc at UC Berkeley and Columbia University. I received the PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology.
My research focuses on Large Language Models for Code Generation and AI for Security. My research group works on: enabling AI Coding Assistants to generate secure and correct code, benchmarking and building LLM agents to detect and patch security vulnerabilities, and the security and privacy issues of AI Agents. I’ve been honored with several awards, including the ACM CCS Best Paper Award Runner-up, the Google ASPIRE Award, the NSF CAREER award, and the Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship.
Research Group Recruiting: If you are interested in a PhD position, please fill out the questionnaire, and email me: yzchen [at] umd [dot] edu. If you are an undergraduate student at UMD and interested in research, please take CMSC414 (Computer and Network Security) with me in Spring 2026!