About Me

I am a senior undergraduate student at Tsinghua University majoring in Electronic Engineering. My primary research focus is on AI security, particularly developing robust defenses against emerging threats to large language models and AI systems. I am also broadly interested in AI safety, alignment, interpretability, explainability, code generation, and human-AI interaction.

I recently completed a research position at UC Berkeley, where I collaborated with Sizhe Chen under the guidance of Prof. David Wagner. During this time, I worked on building deployable defenses against prompt injection attacks targeting LLMs, focusing on creating practical security solutions for real-world AI systems.

I spent a great time during my six-month research experience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where I worked on developing anti-phishing LLM agents and exploring human factors in phishing attacks under the supervision of Prof. Gang Wang. This work resulted in a publication at SOUPS 2025. Prior to this, I conducted research about intelligent city with Prof. Yong Li at Tsinghua University.

I aim to contribute to the development of safer and more trustworthy AI systems for real-world deployment, bridging the gap between theoretical security research and practical applications in cybersecurity.

Education

BEng in Electronic Engineering
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Sep. 2021 - Jun. 2026 (Expected)
Undergraduate Exchange in Computer Science
University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada
Sep. 2023 - Dec. 2023

Research Experience

Research Assistant - LLM Security
University of California Berkeley, CA, USA
June. 2025 - Sep. 2025
Advisor: Prof. David Wagner (Prompt Injection Defense)
Research Assistant - AI4Security
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), IL, USA
Jul. 2024 - Jan. 2025
Advisor: Prof. Gang Wang (Phishing Detection & LLM Agents)

Publications

Defending Against Prompt Injection With DataFilter
Yizhu Wang, Sizhe Chen, Raghad Alkhudair, Basel Alomair, David Wagner.
Preprint: arXiv:2510.19207
Defending Against Prompt Injection With a Few DefensiveTokens
Sizhe Chen, Yizhu Wang, Nicholas Carlini, Chawin Sitawarin, David Wagner.
Spotlight ACM Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Security (AISec @ CCS), Taiwan, Oct 2025
Can You Walk Me Through It? Explainable SMS Phishing Detection using LLM-based Agents
Yizhu Wang, Haoyu Zhai, Chenkai Wang, Qingying Hao, Nick A. Cohen, Roopa Foulger, Jonathan A. Handler, Gang Wang.
Proceedings of the 21st Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS), Seattle, WA, August 2025

Awards and Honors

Outstanding Overseas Study Scholarship Award (Top 1/11)
Tsinghua University
Oct, 2025
Outstanding Technological Innovation (5%)
Tsinghua University
Oct, 2025
USENIX student travel grant
USENIX
Aug, 2025
Tsinghua University Zheng Gang Alumni Scholarship (5%)
Tsinghua University, Beijing
Dec. 2023
Excellent Science and Technology Association Backbone (5%)
Tsinghua University, Beijing
Oct. 2023
Social Work Excellence Award (<4%)
Tsinghua University, Beijing
Nov. 2022
Freshman Scholarship (<4%)
Tsinghua University, Beijing
Dec. 2021

Beyond Work