Who We Are?

PI: Dr. Zheng Song

Assistant Professor, Computer and Information Science Department @ UM Dearborn

My research focuses on developing middleware solutions that enhance the reliability, performance, and cost-efficiency of distributed systems and applications, including edge computing systems, service-oriented architectures, and everyday mobile applications. I received the Distinguished Paper Award at IEEE ICDCS 2024, the Best Paper Award at IEEE Edge 2019, and the NSF CRII Award in 2021. My work has been published in top-tier conferences and journals such as ICDCS, CCS, NeurIPS, ICWS, ICSOC, EMSE, JSS, TVT, TIST, TII, and IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. I hold two PhDs: one in Computer Science, with a focus on distributed systems and software engineering, from Virginia Tech (USA, 2020); and another in wireless networking and mobile computing from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (China, 2015).

Ph.D. Students

Khairul Mottakin

Khairul Mottakin is a PhD candidate in Computer and Information Science department. He received his Masters by Research (MRes) degree from Bournemouth University, UK and B.Sc. in CSE from United International University(UIU), Bangladesh. His research interests include Indoor Localization, WiFi Sensing and Federated Learning.

Zhengquan Li

Zhengquan is a PhD candidate in Computer and Information Science department. His research interests include but are not limited to distributed systems, middleware for web service optimization, and ML for edge.

Students I work with

Undergraduate Students:

Richard Nelson, Summer 25, supported by SURE
Meriam Harissa & Jana Amin, Fall 24, Bird Prediction (Extension of Senior Design Project)
Fatima Hazime & Marwa Chebeir, Fall 24, Camera-based Speeding Detection (Extension of SURE'24), published at IEEE ICMI'25
Sal Martinez, Fall 24, MQTT Middleware
Eejoy Lim, Winter 24, worked on Web Service Testing, now at Amazon, published at IEEE SSE'25
Ashley Yu (Supported by REU), Fall 23 - Winter 24, worked on IVIS system control using smartwatch, published at IEEE VTC'25
Nico Bokhari (Supported by REU), Winter 24, worked on improving energy efficiency for MQTT, published at IEEE VTC'24, now MS at UM Ann Arbor
Larnell Moore (Supported by REU), Fall 23 - Winter 24, worked on using ChatGPT for education (published at ASEE'24), now Ph.D. at UM Ann Arbor
Olivia Pellegrini (Supported by REU), Fall 2023, worked on web service, published at IEEE ICWS'24, first employment at Deloitte
Demetrius Johnson (Supported REU), Winter 2023 - Summer 2023, published at IEEE MOST and ITSC, first employment at Ford
Jonathan Schall (Supported by SURE), Summer 23, published at MOST and ITSC, first employment at HATCI
Owen Rowader (Supported by SURE and REU), Summer 2021 - Winter 2022, published at IEEE CloudCOM'22, first employment at Infoview Systems
Maryam Tello (Supported by REU), Winter 2022, published at IEEE CloudCOM"22.

Graduate Students:

Chineme Uba, 09/24 - , Project: MQTT Middleware
Siddhi Vijay Baravkar (Master's thesis student), 05/23 - 12/24, Thesis Topic: Navigating Rapid API: An Empirical Dive into the Service Market, published at ICWS'24, SSE'24, and ICMI'25
Chi Zhang, 08/23 - 12/23, Ph.D. student (dropped out)
Sayma Tamboli, 12/23 - 07/24, now at Magna Electronics
Kiran Davuluri (Master's thesis student), 09/22 - 08/24, Thesis Topic: Facilitating Realtime Road Event Detection on Collaborative UAV and Ground Vehicle
Summit Shrestha (Master's thesis student), 09/22 - 08/24, Thesis Topic: Scale With What You Have: Scalable Serverless Computing with Limited Resources at the Edge", now Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech.
Venkata Alekhya Kusam (Master's Thesis Student), 09/23 - 05/24, Thesis Topic: Generative-AI Assisted Feedback Provisioning for Project-based Learning in CS Education, work published at ASEE'24, FIE'24, ASEE'25
Sarvesh Bhatnagar (Master's Thesis Student), 09/2021 - 05/2023, Thesis Topic: Serverless System Support for Resource-Constrained Edge Computing, work published at PERCOM'23 Workshop, now at Amazon
Alaa Jaber (Master's Thesis Student), 09/2022 - 08/2023, AI-assisted Feedback Provisioning for Improving Students' Project-based Learning in High-level Computer Science Courses, published at ASEE'23
Nidhi Shah, (Master's student), Fall 2020 - Winter 2021, published a conference paper at IEEE EDUCON'22, now at Walmart SDE

Lab Photos

Zhengquan and Siddhi

Zhengquan won the Honor Scholar Award for CIS PhD and Siddhi won the Honor Scholar Award for CIS MS:)

Left: Eejoy, Sayma, Siddhi, Alekhya, Ashley, Zheng, Summit, Zhengquan, Khairul, Kiran

Lab Gathering (April 2024)

Sarvesh's Graduation (April 2023)

SkySocket Team: Demetrius Johnson, Olivia Pellegrini, Ryan Sauer, and Jonathan Schall

Senior Design Project: SkySocket

Presenting at MI Career Quest'23

Senior Design Project: Blaze

Blaze provides a better fire safety experience by prioritizing accurate sensing, user interactions, and fast notifications. Users may subscribe to receive notifications from fire alarms in a local network. Once an alarm is triggered, subscribed users receive a push notification to confirm the existence of a fire. Once confirmed, all fire alarms in the local network are triggered to notify all bystanders.

Students: Andrew Pearson, Brett Csotty, Larnell Moore, Nico Bokhari (Fall 23~ Winter 24)

Senior Design: Robin combines AI bioacoustics, predictive data, and inclusive design to turn every outdoor moment into an interactive nature lesson.

Achievements of the team:

IEEE EIT'25 paper
Robin App Launch Party at EIC
Best Senior Design Project in CIS, 2025

For more information, please visit: https://janaamin.github.io/RobinSong.io/

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