Helen Jiahe Wang, Ph.D.

Areas of Interest

Education

Awards

Research Experience

Somex: Social Memory Index (2012-present)
I have been leading the Somex research project, in which we advocate "activity" to be the central abstraction between people and computing instead of applications. We envision an activity platform as the next-generation computing and social platform.

Security and Privacy in augmented reality-based general-purpose client systems (2012-present)
I have been contributing to the design of new OS abstractions and access control in a general purpose augmented reality-based client system.

ServiceOS (including MashupOS and Gazelle) (2006-2012):
I led the ServiceOS project. ServiceOS represents the next generation client platform designed to embrace the software-as-a-service paradigm where the master copy of any software and data resides in the cloud and cached on client devices. W3C HTML5 has adopted the cross-domain communciation primitives proposed in ServiceOS. Major browsers like Chrome are being built as an operating system, separating mutually distrusting domains into separate processes, which was first proposed and prototyped in the ServiceOS project.

BrowserShield (2005-2007):
I led the BrowserShield project. BrowserShield is the first inline reference monitor for JavaScript. BrowserShield enables vulnerability signatures for dynamic content and many other applications.

Shield/GAPA (2003-2007)
I led the Shield/GAPA project. Shield is a vulnerability-driven end-host firewall where network traffic is "patched" according to known software defects. Such a data-driven "patch" is much easier to test for and to deploy than software patches, and can effectively protect the critical time window between vulnerability disclosure and patch application where 90% of the attacks take place today. Shield/GAPA is successfully transferred into Microsoft's Anti-Malware solution running on every Windows' machine today.

Location Privacy in Wireless Networks (2005-2007)
I led this project to address the location privacy in wireless networks. We achieve location privacy by obfuscating all dimensions of information exhibited from a mobile node, including sender identity, time of transmission, and signal strength. And we validate our design through real-system implementation and field experiments along with analysis and simulations.

PeerPressure (2003-2004)
I led PeerPressure project in which we diagnose PC misconfigurations by using statistics of configuration values from other machines. This is in contrast with methods that require manual identification on a healthy machine for diagnosing misconfigurations. The elimination of this manual operation makes a significant step towards automated misconfiguration troubleshooting. This technology has been built by Microsoft's ATC into a toolkit for Microsoft PSS.

Friends Troubleshooting Network (2003-2005)
I led the FTN project to investigate privacy- and integrity-preserving peer-to-peer troubleshooting using PeerPressure. To this end, we constructed a friends peer-to-peer overlay to gather PC configuration samples using source-less and destination-less random walk, during which search is carried out simultaneously with secure parameter aggregation for the purpose of troubleshooting. For secure parameter aggregation, we designed a novel open-membership homomorphic scheme.

CoopNet (2002-2004)
http://research.microsoft.com/projects/coopnet/
I was one of the main contributors to the CoopNet project at MSR. In this project, we enable resilient living streaming in peer-to-peer networks by providing redundancy in both path and data. We use multiple, diverse distribution trees to provide redundancy in network paths and multiple description coding (MDC) to provide redundancy in data.

ICEBERG (1999-2001)
I led the design, implementation, deployment, and maintenance of a unified communication network system called ICEBERG at U.C. Berkeley. For my dissertation research, I designed, built and evaluated the soft-state signaling protocol, mobility support, and the network- and device-independent service creation model for the system. I also served as the system integrator for our ICEBERG releases.

Employment History

CEO and Cofounder 6crickets Inc. Bellevue, WA (2014 - present):
Set strategic directions, design and evolve business models, manage product development, business development, sales and marketing, fund raising, and recruiting, and team building.

Research Manager Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA (2006 - 2015):
Found, build up, and lead the security and privacy research group at MSR Redmond.

Principal Researcher (2010 - 2015), Senior Researcher (2007 - 2010), Researcher (Nov 2001 - 2007)
Led research in ServiceOS, Gazelle, MashupOS, BrowserShield, Shield, Location privacy, PeerPressure, Friends Troubleshooting Network. Contribute to other research projects. Tech-transfer to product groups. Provide consulting to product groups. Mentor graduate students.

Graduate Student Researcher U. C. Berkeley, CA (1996-2001):
Led research in ICEBERG and policy-driven vertical handoff in heterogeneous wireless networks. TA-ed graduate level mobile computing class. Mentored 7 undergraduate students.

Summer Intern Daimler Benz Research Lab, Palo Alto, CA (Summer 1997): Summer Intern
Researched on policy-driven handoffs across heterogeneous wireless networks, and deployed and measured my architecture and protocol.

Summer Intern IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA (Summer 1996):
Designed and implemented the access control mechanism for Grand Central Station, an information gathering and redistribution system for the web.

Software Engineer Nortel, Dallas, TX (1995-1996):
Worked on Intelligent Cellular Remote Module Operation, Administration and Maintenance (ICRM OA&M) and Over-The-Air-Activation-Provisioning (OTASP) in CDMA systems.

U. T. Austin Austin, TX (1992-1994): Undergraduate Researcher and TA
Researched on the integration of the real-time system verification and simulation. Taught self-paced Introduction to Computer Science class and graded math class exams and homeworks.

Mobil Oil Dallas, TX (Summer 1993, 1994): Internship
Built 3D graphics using APEX and wrote Visual Basic application

Professional Activities

Program committee member for:

• 2013: Oakland, SOSP
• 2012: W2SP, MoST
• 2011: Usenix Security, NSDI, SIGCOMM
• 2010: Usenix Security, CCS, HotSec, WebApp, W2SP
• 2009: SOSP, W2SP, WWW
• 2008: OSDI, CCS, WWW, LEET (former WORM)
• 2007: Oakland, NDSS, HotSec, W2SP, SIGCOMM poster, HotMobile publicity
• 2006: Oakland, Infocom, NOSSDAV
• 2005: Mobicom, Infocom, ICDCS, IPTPS
• 2004: Infocom, WORM
• 2003: Mobicom, WMASH

Steering Committee member for: NDSS (2014-2017), CCS (2014-), Oakland (2015-)

Program Chair for:

• 2014: IEEE Symposium of Security and Privacy (Oakland)
• 2011: W2SP
• 2008: WWW

NSF Proposal Reviewer: 2005, 2006, 2013

Panelist for:

• IAB Unwanted traffic workshop, March 9, 2006
• IEEE WMCSA, 2006

• GREPSEC workshop 2013
• N2Women workshop 2012
• OSDI Diversity Workshop 2008

Technical advisor's board member for The Collaborative Center for Internet Epidemiology and Defenses (CCIED).

Publications