Tao Chen

Postdoctoral Associate
Department of Computer Science
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, United States

Email: tachen.cs@gmail.com

Google Scholar / LinkedIn / Github / ORCID

Building sensory AI serving for human and physical world.

I am on the job market this season and appreciate any fit opportunity.

News


[Jan, 2025] LeekyFeeder conditional accepted by SenSys'25.

[Jan, 2025] Our group had an exciting opportunity to visit Senegal, Africa, to deploy low-cost hearable health monitors for supporting local underserved communities.

[Nov, 2024] Asclepius won Best Paper Award at MobiCom 2024 and I was invited to present it at both main conference and AgeTech workshop.

[Nov, 2024] "Earable Multimodal Sensing and Stimulation: A Prospective Towards Unobtrusive Closed-Loop Biofeedback" accepted by IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering.

[Nov, 2024] Vision paper "Towards Next-Generation Human Computer Interface Based On Earables" now accepted by IEEE Pervasive Computing.

[Jul, 2024] Zero-shot IoT sensing with foundation models now accepted by ECAI'24.

[Mar, 2024] EarVoice is now accepted by MobiSys'24 :)

[Jan, 2024] Mobile Acoustic Field (MAF) is accepted by CHI'24.

[Nov, 2023] Asclepius and MagWear are both accepted by MobiCom'24. See you in DC next year!

[Jun, 2023] Happy to receive the Best Poster Presentation Award (12/300+) at Pitt Postdoctoral Symposium 2023!

[Dec, 2022] Humbled to receive the ACM SIGMOBILE Student Community Grant award!

Research


I am an experimental computer researcher. My research centers on building human-centric mobile system, aims to unlock the untapped potential of wearable devices through cutting-edge AI, sensing, and computational technologies. Passionate about sensor technology, I currently work on the following areas to create versatile systems and applications:

- Digital health: Asclepius(MobiCom'24,Best Paper), Magwear(MobiCom'24), Zero-shot activities logging(ECAI'24), Earable(RBME'24)
- Audio, sensory, physical AI: EarVoice(MobiSys'24), SpotSound(MobiCom'23), SoundSticker(ToSN), Metamorph(NDSS'20), TapLeak(ICDCS'20)
- Spatial computing: MAF(CHI'24), LeekyFeeder(SenSys'25)

I am always open to collaborations. If you see any interest, feel free to drop an email and I am happy to chat!

Short Bio


I am currently a postdoc researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, working with Prof. Longfei Shangguan. Prior to my postdoc, I received my Ph.D. from City University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Prof. Zhenjiang Li.

I am a quick learner, easily adapt to new things, and get the job done.

Main Publications

(^ represents for students I supervise)


[MobiCom'24] Exploring the Feasibility of Remote Cardiac Auscultation Using Earphones

Tao Chen, Yongjie Yang, Xiaoran Fan, Xiuzhen Guo, Jie Xiong, Longfei Shangguan

MobiCom 2024 , D.C., USA, Oct 2024

[Project]    [Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

Best Paper Award (1 out of all submissions)

ACM SigMobile Research Highlight

[MobiSys'24] Enabling Hands-Free Voice Assistant Activation on Earphoness

Tao Chen, Yongjie Yang, Chonghao Qiu, Xiaoran Fan, Xiuzhen Guo, Longfei Shangguan

MobiSys 2024 , Tokyo, Japan, June 2024

[Project]    [Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

[RBME] Earable Multimodal Sensing and Stimulation: A Prospective Towards Unobtrusive Closed-Loop Biofeedback

Yuchen Xu, Abhinav Uppal, Min Suk Lee, Kuldeep Mahato, Brian L. Wuerstle, Muyang Lin, Omeed Djassemi, Tao Chen, Rui Lin, Akshay Paul, Soumil Jain, Florian Chapotot, Esra Tasali, Patrick Mercier, Sheng Xu, Joseph Wang, Gert Cauwenberghs

IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering , IF:17.20

[Paper]    [Video]   

[Pervasive] Towards Next-Generation Human Computer Interface Based On Earables

Yongjie Yang^, Tao Chen, Longfei Shangguan

IEEE Pervasive Computing

[Paper]   

[ECAI] Leveraging Foundation Models for Zero-Shot IoT Sensing

Dinghao Xue^, Xiaoran Fan, Tao Chen, Guohao Lan, Qun Song

European Conference on Artificial Intelligence

[Paper]    [Code]   

[CHI'24] MAF: Exploring Mobile Acoustic Field for Hand-to-Face Gesture Interactions

Yongjie Yang^, Tao Chen, Zipan Huang, Xiuzhen Guo, Longfei Shangguan

CHI 2024 , Hawaiʻi, USA, May 2024

[Project]    [Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

[MobiCom'24] Exploring Biomagnetism for Inclusive Vital Sign Monitoring: Modeling and Implementation

Xiuzhen Guo, Long Tan, Tao Chen, Chaojie Gu, Yuanchao Shu, Shibo He, Jiming Chen, Longfei Shangguan

MobiCom 2024 , D.C., USA, Oct 2024

[Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

[MobiCom'23] Towards Spatial Selection Transmission for Low-end IoT devices with SpotSound

Tingchao Fan^, Huangwei Wu^, Meng Jin, Tao Chen, Longfei Shangguan, Xinbing Wang, Chenghu Zhou

MobiCom 2023 , Madrid, Spain, Oct 2023

[Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

[ToSN] The Design and Implementation of a Steganographic Communication System over In-Band Acoustical Channels

Tao Chen, Longfei Shangguan, Zhenjiang Li, Kyle Jamieson

ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks

[Project]    [Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

[NDSS'20] Metamorph: Injecting Inaudible Commands into Over-the-air Voice Controlled Systems

Tao Chen, Longfei Shangguan, Zhenjiang Li, Kyle Jamieson

NDSS Symposium 2020 , San Diego, CA, February 2020

[Project]    [Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

[ICDCS'20] Mobile Phones Know Your Keystrokes through the Sounds from Finger's Tapping on the Screen

Zhen Xiao^, Tao Chen, Yang Liu, Zhenjiang Li

IEEE ICDCS , Singapore, December 2020

[Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

[TMC] Journal version in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing

[IOTJ] Adversarial Attacks and Defenses on Cyber-Physical Systems: A Survey

Jiao Li, Yang Liu, Tao Chen, Zhen Xiao, Zhenjiang Li, Jianping Wang

IEEE Internet of Things Journal

[Paper]    [Slides]    [Video]   

Other Publications


Towards Remote Auscultation With Commodity Earphones

Tao Chen, Xiaoran Fan, Yongjie Yang, Longfei Shangguan

SenSys 2022 , Boston, USA, November 2022


Poster: Room-Scale Over-the-Air Audio Adversarial Examples

Tao Chen, Longfei Shangguan, Zhenjiang Li, Kyle Jamieson

NDSS Symposium 2020 , San Diego, USA, February 2020

Selected Awards


ACM SigMobile Research Highlight, 2025

Best Paper Award (1 out of all submissions) , ACM MobiCom, 2024

SIGMOBILE Student Community Grant Award, ACM SIGMOBILE, 2022

Best Poster Presentation Award (12/300+), Pitt Postdoctoral Research Symposium, 2023

Student Travel Grant, NDSS, 2020

Research Tuition Scholarship, CityU, 2020

Robosub Best New Team, AUVSI and ONR, 2016

Singapore AUV Challenge First Place, IEEE OES Singapore, 2016

Talks, Lectures & Presentations


Exploring the Feasibility of Remote Cardiac Auscultation Using Earphones
- ACM MobiCom 2024
- MobiCom4AgeTech workshop 2024
- Carnegie Mellon University, hosted by Prof. Mahadev Satyanarayanan

Audio and Beyond: Building Multimodal Sensory AI Systems
- University of Pittsburgh
- Samsung Research America
- Starkey Hearing Technologies
- Dolby Laboratories Inc
- Apple
- AIZIP

Sensing and Interpretation: Push the Limit of Accessible Consumer Health
- University of Pittsburgh
- Samsung Research America

Enabling Hands-Free Voice Assistant Activation on Earphones
- Carnegie Mellon University, hosted by Prof. Mahadev Satyanarayanan

Exploring Biomagnetism for Inclusive Vital Sign Monitoring: Modeling and Implementation
- Carnegie Mellon University, hosted by Prof. Mahadev Satyanarayanan

Services


Editor:
Electronics: Recent Advances in Signal Processing for Flexible and Wearable Electronics (Special Issue)

TPC:
2025: HumanSys;
2024: ISWC; MobiCom (AEC); NDSS (AEC); IPSN (Poster); IEEE ICPADS; EAI MobiQuitous; EarComp; IEEE MSN; ACM BigCom; IEEE ISPA; SENSORDEVICES;
2023: MobiCom (AEC); SOSP (AEC); IEEE ICPADS; EAI MobiQuitous; EarComp; IEEE Cloud Summit;
2022: IEEE ICPADS; EAI MobiQuitous; ACM SenSys (shadow);

Reviewer:
ACM CHI 2025, 2023;
ACM BigCom 2024;
ACM ICDCS 2024;
ACM ASSETS 2023;
IEEE VIS 2023;
ACM MobiCom 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021;
The Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT/UbiComp), 2024, 2023, 2021;
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing;
ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security;
ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks;
IEEE Pervasive Computing;
IEEE Internet of Things Journal;
Frontiers Artificial Intelligence of Things;

Organization:
2022: Session Chair, MobiQuitous

Miscellaneous


I had wonderful experiences on designing underwater robots (AUV) with a group of friends during my undergraduate years, where I am in charge of the hardware and sonar system. Our AUV NEMO won Best New Team in Robosub 2016 (San Diego, CA) and First Place in SAUVC 2016 (Singapore).

Here are some memorable videos about our robot and team in SAUVC (day3, day2, day1) and Robosub (team).