Yuliang Zheng, Professor & PhD

Professor Yuliang Zheng is known as the father of the signcryption technology which is now an ISO international standard for data security. His pioneering research into the application of one-way hash to immunizing public key encryption against adaptive attacks has been embodied in numerous international standards for public key cryptography, including those from ISO, IEEE and IETF. An internationally recognized authority in cryptography and network security, Professor Zheng has published over 200 scholarly articles and books on security and holds a multiple number of patents in cyber security. He plays an active, leadership role in international research communities, serving as the Chair of the Steering Committee of the Public Key Cryptography (PKC) conferences sponsored by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR). In addition, he served as an associate editor of The Computer Journal published by the Oxford University Press and is on the steering committees for a number of research and industrial forums including Information Security Conference (ISC), IEEE Information Assurance Standards Committee, and Workshop on Long-Term/Information-Theoretic Security.

In his more than 30 years of experience with information security technology and applications, Professor Zheng has traversed both the commercial and scholastic sides of the industries. He worked for two years as a software engineer at a telecommunication company after completing his undergraduate degree, and, after earning his PhD, moved to Australia. There he worked at first as a cyber security research scientist at the Australian Defense Force Academy, then as a professor at the University of Wollongong and Monash University. In 1999 Professor Zheng was recognized as one of the top 10 most prolific researchers in cryptography. In August 2001, he was recruited to join the faculty of UNC Charlotte where he founded the Information Security and Assurance Center (ISAC). Since July 2015 Professor Zheng has been with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, serving as the Chair of the Department of Computer Science. In addition to scholarly research, he has consulted for a large number of banks, e-commerce, computer and telecommunication companies, and governments at all levels.

Professor Yuliang Zheng earned his Bachelor of Science degree with Highest Distinction in computer science from the Nanjing Institute of Technology in 1982. He then won a prestigious young researcher’s award from the Ministry of Education for studies at Yokohama National University in Japan, where he earned his master’s and PhD degrees in electrical and