Oscar Fang

There’s something fascinating about the gap between what code promises and what it actually delivers. That tension—between the elegant abstractions we write and the messy reality of how systems behave—is what drew me to computer security.

I’m a first-year PhD student at George Washington University, working with Prof. Jie Zhou in the Systems Security Lab. My research focuses on making programming languages safer without sacrificing the control that systems programmers need.

What I’m Building

Right now, I’m deep in the world of Rust—specifically, figuring out how to systematically evaluate memory safety when developers step outside the language’s guardrails. It’s a bit like being a safety inspector for a tightrope: Rust gives you the net, but sometimes you need to perform without it.

My work involves:

• Creating comprehensive benchmarks for unsafe Rust code (because what gets measured gets improved)
• Building analysis tools that catch the subtle bugs humans miss
• Developing verification frameworks that prove safety properties hold—even in tricky edge cases

The goal isn’t just academic. Every vulnerability we prevent, every unsafe pattern we catch, makes real software more secure for real people.

My Journey

Before diving into security research, I explored different corners of computer science:

• Built 3D medical imaging systems at Southeast University—learning how computational precision can literally save lives
• Designed financial analytics platforms at Engage Payments, serving 200+ student organizations and discovering that clean architecture matters when real money is involved
• Earned my degree at UC Davis, where I first fell in love with the beautiful complexity of compilers

Let’s Connect

I’m always excited to talk about programming language security, compiler internals, or that fascinating paper you just read. Whether you’re exploring research collaborations, have questions about my work, or just want to geek out about type systems—drop me a line.

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Building systems that are both powerful and safe isn’t just good engineering—it’s how we make technology worthy of people’s trust.