Meet Yuan Hong
Practice makes perfect
Rutgers University alumni and former Computer Science professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, Dr. Yuan Hong begins his next chapter as an associate professor in the Computer Science & Engineering Department, bringing his cyber security background to the land of the howling Huskies.
Yuan is highly passionate about cyber security. “Thirty years ago, most cyber security problems tied to national security problems. Now every device is connected to the internet and that collectively puts them at several risks and vulnerabilities.” This passion for cybersecurity led to him earning a prestigious NSF CAREER Award in 2021 titled Privacy Preserving Security Analytics: When Security Meets Privacy. His research lies in the intersection between security/privacy and data science, which is important to create “novel technologies for ensuring security and preserving user privacy in many different applications.” Yuan decided on UConn to pursue his research due to the significant collaboration opportunities in cyber security and other disciplines at UConn.
Yuan takes a philosophical approach to teaching. He sees it as a way to both give information to others and take in new information. “It’s rewarding for me if students can learn a lot from my courses.” Yuan believes that students need to take more value in cyber security due to the technological advancements of today’s age. “Maybe they don’t have enough awareness on those threats which is also a problem at this time.” Yuan hopes students use what they learn to take better care of their digital presence and keep an eye out for unknown attackers.
Everything is knowledge, no matter what specific type of knowledge it is. Yuan believes that “you should not only focus on the knowledge learned from the classes but also the methods you can develop to learn.” The material learnt and the method used to learn are both types of knowledge valuable for self-growth, so retain that knowledge. “When you know more problems, you’ll try to solve these problems independently. Then, you’ll get used to it.” As they always say, “practice makes perfect”.
If you are interested in learning more about Dr. Yuan Hong and his research, please visit his website for more information: https://yhongcs.github.io/
