Awards & Recognition
Research Awards & Competition Recognition
National Grand Prize - 19th “Challenge Cup” National Competition (2024)
- Role: Advisor (Ranked 2nd among 3 advisors)
- Project: “Multimodal AI Audit Matrix: Deepfake Detection and NSFW Content Regulation Platform”
- Recognition: Top-Tier Award
3rd Place - IJCAI 2025 Deepfake Detection Challenge
- Competition: Workshop on Deepfake Detection, Localization, and Interpretability (co-located with IJCAI 2025)
- Track: Track 2 - Audio-Visual Detection and Localization (DDL-AV)
- Team: 会赢的 (Zhejiang University)
- Achievement: 3rd Place in multi-modal deepfake detection and localization
- Technical Focus: Complex multi-modal attacks including “forged audio + authentic video” scenarios
- Venue: IJCAI 2025, Montreal/Guangzhou (August 16, 2025)
Official Certificate: 
Top 5 Nationwide - 3rd China Artificial Intelligence Competition (2021)
- Role: Primary Advisor (Ranked 1st among 2 advisors)
- Track 1: Audio Deepfake Detection Under Open-Speaker Scenarios
- Track 2: Speaker-Specific Audio Deepfake Detection
- Achievement: Dual track excellence in AI security research
Finalist for “Most Innovative Research” Pwnie Award - Black Hat USA 2019
- Role: First Author (1st of 4 contributors)
- Research: “SonarSnoop: Active Acoustic Side-Channel Attacks”
- Significance: International recognition at one of the world’s most prestigious cybersecurity conferences
- Impact: Praised by renowned security experts including Bruce Schneier and Prof. Ross Anderson
Official Citation (2019):
“Ok, you know we’re down when the paper reads like it is out of a James Bond book, or at least that in some dark corner of the NSA there is a scientist who’s pissed about it. In this paper, the researchers use speakers to emit human inaudible sounds as part of a sonar system to track victim’s finger movements. Doing this while the victim unlocks their phone doesn’t give them the exact unlock pattern but does greatly reduce the number of patterns to try. Straight off the sci-fi channel when it still played had sci fi shows, the only minor issue is they only tested it against 10 subjects and since it is an academic paper, it’s probably entirely impractical.”
Historical Reference: Original Pwnie Award Nominations (Internet Archive)
Academic Excellence Awards
Postdoctoral Excellence Grant (Second Class)
Zhejiang Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security (August 2021)
Ph.D. Scholarship
Faculty of Science and Technology, Lancaster University, UK (2016–2020)
- Full doctoral scholarship covering tuition and living expenses
Mentorship & Supervision Awards
National Graduate Scholarship Achievement (October 2024)
- Achievement: Co-supervised Master’s student won the National Graduate Scholarship (China)
- Significance: Highest-level scholarship awarded to Master’s students in China
Industry Impact Recognition
Commercial AI Model Security - SurrogatePrompt Research
- Findings: Identified vulnerabilities in leading AI vendors (Midjourney, Stability.ai)
- Impact: Contributed to security improvements in commercial text-to-image AI models
Watermarking System Vulnerabilities - Amazon Collaboration (2025)
- Research Impact: Developed WMCopier attack method that identified critical vulnerabilities in Amazon’s watermarking systems (Titan Image Generator and Amazon Nova Canvas)
- Collaborative Partnership: Amazon’s Responsible AI Team acknowledged the research contribution and collaborated on security improvements
- Recognition: Received official statement and thank you letter from AWS Security Outreach Team
Official Amazon Statement (March 28, 2025):
“We appreciate the researchers from the State Key Laboratory of Blockchain and Data Security at Zhejiang University for reporting this issue and collaborating with us… We are grateful for reports from the security community, and your report was an excellent example of a positive coordinated disclosure.”
AWS Security Team Acknowledgment: 
Open-Source Contributions - ALIF Framework
- Adoption: NVIDIA integrated ALIF into their official AI security toolkit
- Status: Under active development for red teaming capabilities enhancement
Media Recognition & Expert Endorsement
International Media Coverage - SonarSnoop Research Impact
- Media Coverage: Pocketnow, Motherboard, ZDNet, Naked Security, Slashdot, eldiario.es (Spain), and many more (in various languages including Chinese, German and Russian)
- Research Significance: First active acoustic side-channel attack demonstrating novel smartphone exploitation methods through acoustic profiling
- Source: As documented on Prof. Jeff Yan’s homepage
Expert Endorsements from Security Community Leaders
- Prof. Ross Anderson (University of Cambridge): “Truly spooky new method of remote surveillance”
- Bruce Schneier (Renowned Cryptographer & Security Expert): “It’s amazing that this is even possible”
- Technical Media: “This is the coolest Android hack we’ve seen” - Pocketnow
These awards and recognitions reflect a consistent commitment to advancing cybersecurity research, fostering academic excellence, and making meaningful contributions to both academic and industrial communities in AI security and privacy protection.