Recent Research Achievements of the SAND Lab at the University of Chicago

Updated

The SAND Lab (Security, Algorithms, Networking and Data) at the University of Chicago, co-directed by Professors Ben Y. Zhao and Heather Zheng, has produced a steady stream of peer-reviewed papers, awards, and public recognition across security and machine learning. Its recent output clusters around generative AI security—especially data poisoning, image detection, and privacy attacks—with additional work in wireless and mobile systems. If you are evaluating the lab's research activity, the items below are the most concrete signals available from its own site.

Peer-reviewed papers

The lab's recent publications span top security, measurement, and machine learning venues:

Paper / topic Venue
Hemlock (adversarial mislabeling poison) attacks ACM CCS
Measuring genAI crawlers and defenses IMC
Generative AI image detection ACM CCS
Diffusion model implosion ACM CCS 2024
Nightshade IEEE S&P 2024
Model versioning SaTML 2024
NeurIPS work with Princeton collaborators NeurIPS

The recurring themes are adversarial machine learning and generative AI: poisoning attacks, detection of AI-generated images, crawler measurement, and model versioning. Nightshade and the generative AI image detection paper are the most widely referenced of these.

Awards and honors

  • CCS Distinguished Paper Award for the generative AI image detection paper (Anna, Josephine, Ronik, and Shawn).
  • Chicago Innovation Award for Glaze, which also received a special mention in TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of 2023.
  • TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in AI — Ben Zhao.
  • MIT Technology Review 35 Young Innovators under 35, including Innovator of the Year — Shawn Shan.
  • Forbes 30 under 30, 2024 — Shawn Shan, Jenna, and Emily.

People and career outcomes

The lab's alumni outcomes are another indicator of its activity and reputation. Two recent PhD graduates moved directly into faculty roles:

  • Shawn Shan defended his dissertation and will join Dartmouth College in 2026 as Assistant Professor of Computer Science.
  • Zhuolin Yang defended her dissertation on AI-enhanced privacy attacks and will join the University of Arizona in August as Assistant Professor of Computer Science.

The lab describes its membership as roughly 6–10 PhD, MS, and undergraduate researchers plus visiting scholars.

Research areas behind these results

The site lists current research areas including Adversarial Machine Learning and Wireless and Mobile Systems, while the lab's overall scope covers security and machine learning with occasional work in HCI and data mining. The recent publication record is weighted heavily toward the adversarial ML and generative AI side.

If you are considering the lab

The site states the lab is recruiting 1–2 students in the 2025–2026 admission cycle. Prospective applicants are asked to fill out a short Google form to stay on a candidate short list and to mention Heather and Ben when selecting faculty in the UChicago PhD application. Note that this reflects the lab's stated recruiting window at the time of the page content; confirm current openings directly before relying on it.