Xiang Zheng

Research Assistant Professor
Hong Kong Institute of AI for Science (HKAI-Sci)
City University of Hong Kong
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I am a Research Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute of AI for Science (HKAI-Sci), City University of Hong Kong. I also work closely with Prof. Xingjun Ma at the Institute of Trustworthy Embodied AI, Fudan University. My research is positioned at the intersection of Reinforcement Learning, Trustworthy AI, Generative AI (LLMs, diffusion models, and AI agents), and Robot Learning. I am particularly passionate about developing robust and efficient reinforcement learning algorithms to enable Trustworthy Decision Making in real-world systems. I have been honored to receive the prestigious CityU Presidential PhD Scholarship.

I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at City University of Hong Kong in 2024, under the guidance of Prof. Cong Wang. Prior to that, I earned my Master’s degree in Control Science and Engineering from the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University in 2019, where I was advised by Prof. Tao Zhang. I hold dual Bachelor’s degrees in Automation and Mathematics from the Shen Yuan Honors College (formerly the School of Advanced Engineering) at Beihang University, where I graduated in 2016.

Latest News

Mar 28, 2026 Our survey on embodied AI safety with 400+ papers is now available, covering risks, attacks, and defenses across perception, cognition, planning, interaction, and agentic systems.
Mar 09, 2026 Joined HKAI-Sci as Research Assistant Professor on Mar 9.
Mar 04, 2026 Our work on RL-based red teaming is accepted by Frontiers of Computer Science.
Feb 20, 2026 Our work on red teaming text-to-image generators is accepted by CVPR’26.
Jan 29, 2026 Released JustAsk, a framework where curious code agents reveal system prompts in frontier LLMs.

Selected Publications

  1. Preprint
    Safety in Embodied AI: A Survey of Risks, Attacks, and Defenses
    Xiao Li, Xiang Zheng, Yifeng Gao, Xinyu Xia, Yixu Wang, Xin Wang, Ye Sun, Yunhan Zhao, Ming Wen, Jiayu Li, Xun Gong, Yi Liu, Yige Li, Yutao Wu, Cong Wang, Jun Sun, Yixin Cao, Zhineng Chen, Jingjing Chen, Tao Gui, Qi Zhang, Zuxuan Wu, Xipeng Qiu, Xuanjing Huang, Tiehua Zhang, Zhipeng Wei, Hanxun Huang, Sarah Erfani, James Bailey, Jianping Wang, Wei-Ying Ma, Bo Li, Xingjun Ma, and Yu-Gang Jiang
    arXiv preprint, 2026
    Website
  2. CVPR’26
    GenBreak: Red Teaming Text-to-Image Generators Using Large Language Models
    Zilong Wang, Xiang Zheng, Xiaosen Wang, Bo Wang, Xingjun Ma, and Yu-Gang Jiang
    In IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2026
    arXiv
  3. FCS
    RedRFT: A Light-Weight Benchmark for RL-Based Red Teaming
    Xiang Zheng, Xingjun Ma, Wai-Biu Lee, and Cong Wang†
    Frontiers of Computer Science, 2026
    arXiv
  4. Preprint
    Just Ask: Curious Code Agents Reveal System Prompts in Frontier LLMs
    Xiang Zheng, Yutao Wu, Hanxun Huang, Yige Li, Xingjun Ma, Bo Li, Yu-Gang Jiang, and Cong Wang
    arXiv preprint, 2026
    arXiv
  5. FnT P&S
    Safety at Scale: A Comprehensive Survey of Large Model and Agent Safety
    Xingjun Ma,  others, Xiang Zheng, and  others
    Foundations and Trends in Privacy and Security, 2026
  6. ICLR’25
    BlueSuffix: Reinforced Blue Teaming for Vision-Language Models Against Jailbreak Attacks
    Yunhan Zhao, Xiang Zheng†, Lin Luo, Yige Li, Xingjun Ma†, and Yu-Gang Jiang
    In International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2025
    arXiv
  7. AAAI’25
    CALM: Curiosity-Driven Auditing for Large Language Models
    Xiang Zheng, Longxiang Wang, Yi Liu, Xingjun Ma, Chao Shen, and Cong Wang†
    In AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2025
    arXiv
  8. IJCAI’24
    Constrained intrinsic motivation for reinforcement learning
    Xiang Zheng, Xingjun Ma, Chao Shen, and Cong Wang
    In International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 2024
  9. DSN’24
    Toward evaluating robustness of reinforcement learning with adversarial policy
    Xiang Zheng, Xingjun Ma, Shengjie Wang, Xinyu Wang, Chao Shen, and Cong Wang
    In Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 2024
  10. AST
    Reinforcement learning with prior policy guidance for motion planning of dual-arm free-floating space robot
    Yuxue Cao, Shengjie Wang, Xiang Zheng, Wenke Ma, Xinru Xie, and Lei Liu
    Aerospace Science and Technology (AST), 2023
  11. RA-L
    Collision-free trajectory planning for a 6-DoF free-floating space robot via hierarchical decoupling optimization
    Shengjie Wang, Yuxue Cao, Xiang Zheng, and Tao Zhang
    IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2022
  12. IROS’21
    A multi-target trajectory planning of a 6-DoF free-floating space robot via reinforcement learning
    Shengjie Wang, Xiang Zheng, Yuxue Cao, and Tao Zhang
    In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2021
  13. CVPR’20
    Clean-label backdoor attacks on video recognition models
    Shihao Zhao, Xingjun Ma, Xiang Zheng, James Bailey, Jingjing Chen, and Yu-Gang Jiang
    In IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2020

Selected Awards and Honors

  • IJCAI Travel Grant, IJCAI Organization, 2024
  • Conference Grant, City University of Hong Kong, 2024
  • DSN Student Travel Grant, DSN Student Travel Awards Committee, 2024
  • Research Activities Fund, City University of Hong Kong, 2022
  • Institutional Research Tuition Grant, City University of Hong Kong, 2020
  • CityU Presidential PhD Scholarship (HK$1.56m for world-class PhD candidates), City University of Hong Kong, 2020
  • NII MOU Research Activities Grant, National Institute of Informatics, Japan, 2018
  • CSC Scholarship, China Scholarship Council, 2016
  • Stars of Advanced Engineering, the highest honor at the Shen Yuan Honors College, Beihang University, 2015

Professional Activities

Program Committee Member
  • ICML 2026, CVPR 2026, ICLR 2026, AAAI 2026, ICRA 2026, MM 2025, ICLR 2025, AAAI 2025
Journal Reviewer
  • IEEE TDSC, IEEE TSC, IEEE TC
External Reviewer
  • NeurIPS 2025, ICNP 2025, ESORICS 2022, AsiaCCS 2022, RAID 2021, IEEE IoT-J

Research & Work Experience

Visiting Researcher @ Xi'an Jiaotong University Senior Researcher @ Huawei
  • May 2020 - Aug 2020, Xi'an, China
Visiting Researcher @ Xi'an Jiaotong University Research Intern @ National Institute of Informatics Research Intern @ The University of New South Wales

Teaching Assistant

  • CS5293, Topics on Information Security, Semester B 2023/24, Code for Tutorial
  • CS4394, Information Security and Management, Semester A 2023/24
  • CS4293 / CS5293, Topics in Cybersecurity / Topics on Information Security, Semester B 2021/22
  • CS4394 / CS5294, Information Security and Management, Semester A 2021/22
  • CS4293 / CS6290, Topics in Cybersecurity / Privacy-enhancing Technologies, Semester B, 2020/21
  • CS2310 / CS2311, Computer Programming, Semester A, 2020/21