Principled LLMs for reliable systems software.

AI now helps write, analyze, and evolve our software. I work on making systems software reliable. My research builds LLM-assisted program analysis precise enough for real systems software like the Linux kernel, keeping the model inside a principled analysis workflow rather than leaning on prompting. Whether AI helps uncover deep bugs or reshape legacy code, reliability is won at the seam between learned reasoning and principled analysis.

I am a PhD student in Computer Science at UC Riverside, advised by Prof. Zhiyun Qian. Before joining UCR, I received my B.Eng. from SUSTech, where I also worked with Prof. Fengwei Zhang as a research assistant.

Haonan Li

Research

Principled LLMs for reliable systems software

I develop LLM-assisted program analysis techniques to analyze and secure complex systems software. A central line of my Ph.D. research is The Hitchhiker's Guide to Program Analysis, a three-part research series on practical bug detection for the Linux kernel and related systems, with the first two parts published at OOPSLA and ASE. Across this series, I explore how to leverage LLMs' understanding of code and broader software knowledge to make program analysis more precise and reliable.

More broadly, my goal is to make LLM-assisted software engineering genuinely principled. Better models alone cannot close the gaps between what developers intend, what LLMs assume, and what programs actually do. I study how to bridge these gaps—combining program analysis and LLMs to understand, verify, and ultimately reshape complex software so that strong reliability guarantees become practical at scale.

Program Analysis · System Security

Selected work

Honors & Fellowships

Dissertation Year Fellowship Award
UC Riverside
2026
Earle C. Anthony Graduate Student Travel Award
UC Riverside
2026

Recent

Oct 2026
Wrote a new note: Security Research Should Study Security.
Apr 2026
Received the Dissertation Year Fellowship Award at UC Riverside.
Jan 2026
Received the Earle C. Anthony Graduate Student Travel Award.
Dec 2025
TritonForge was accepted to LLM4Code 2026.