Postdoc Ning Luo Selected for EECS Rising Stars Workshop
Ning Luo, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Northwestern Engineering, attended the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Rising Stars Workshop 2023, hosted in November by the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Launched in 2012, EECS Rising Stars is an intensive annual workshop for graduate students and postdocs of historically marginalized or underrepresented genders who are interested in pursuing academic careers in electrical engineering and computer science. Luo was among the 101 invited participants out of a total of 290 applicants.
“Participants in this workshop come from very diverse backgrounds, ranging from computer vision and large language models to electrical engineering power and photonics,” Luo said. “I had the opportunity to learn more about areas outside my expertise by engaging with leading experts in these fields. The ideas and thoughts we exchanged during our conversation will serve as a source of inspiration for my future research.”
Luo's research aims to solve emerging challenges in cybersecurity. Her approach combines formal methods, automated reasoning, programming languages, and cryptography to achieve security, verifiability, and confidentiality in practical and challenging scenarios.
She is building a privacy-preserving software verification toolchain that empowers verifications and ensures trustworthiness without the need to access the source code. She also aims to help strengthen the cybersecurity workforce by developing computer-aided programming frameworks for developers with varying expertise levels and designing tools for conflict resolution and refinement within trust-constrained environments.
The Rising Stars workshop gave Luo a valuable opportunity to practice introducing and explaining her research to a general audience.
“This is highly beneficial, as the ability to explain my work to individuals unfamiliar with the context is a crucial skill when applying for academic positions,” Luo said. “We also had the chance to practice job talks and have one-on-one consultations on our application materials. I received a lot of feedback from both professors and peers who are also on the job market.”
Luo is advised by Xiao Wang, assistant professor of computer science at the McCormick School of Engineering. Prior to joining Northwestern, Luo earned a PhD in computer science in 2022 from Yale University. In 2021, she was a visiting graduate student at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley.
The event’s networking and panels — which included discussions on the job search, pursuing a career in academia, the experience of early-career faculty, and building a mentoring network — inspired and encouraged Luo.
“In this workshop, my peers exuded confidence yet remained humble,” Luo said. “Our shared passion and enthusiasm toward our research are palpable. Witnessing many of us pursuing careers in academia was incredibly encouraging, making me feel somewhat at home and filled with courage.”