Defeng Zhou
Ph.D. Student · University of Miami
Hello, I’m Defeng Zhou 周德峰.
I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Miami, advised by Prof. Mingzhe Chen. I received my B.Eng. from the College of Intelligent Systems, Shenzhen, Sun Yat-sen University in 2025, where I worked with Prof. Shimin Gong in WinsLab.
My research connects semantic communications with autonomous driving, machine learning, spatial reasoning, reinforcement learning, and multimodal data fusion. I am always happy to discuss new ideas and collaborations.
News
- Our paper on resilient and secure multi-hop split learning was accepted by IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.
- My first paper during the Ph.D. was accepted by IEEE ICC 2026.
Publications
Recent and selected work. For citation records and updates, visit Google Scholar.
Published & Accepted
Device Assignment and Model Splitting Optimization for Resilient and Secure Multi-hop Split Learning
Dongyu Wei, Defeng Zhou, Yuchen Liu, and Mingzhe Chen
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2026
Semantic Communication Performance Optimization with Channel and Content Preference Feedbacks
Defeng Zhou, Dongyu Wei, Ye Hu, Siyao Li, and Mingzhe Chen
IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2026
Learning Adaptive Jamming and Beamforming for Hybrid IRS-assisted Secure NOMA Transmissions
Defeng Zhou, Lanhua Li, Shimin Gong, Bo Gu, Gaojie Chen, and Dusit Niyato
IEEE Transactions on Communications, 2025
Deep Reinforcement Learning for IRS-assisted Secure NOMA Transmissions Against Eavesdroppers
Defeng Zhou, Shimin Gong, Lanhua Li, Bo Gu, and Mohsen Guizani
International Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC), 2024
Progressive Network Based on Detail Scaling and Texture Extraction: A More General Framework for Image Deraining
Jiehui Huang, Zhenchao Tang, Xuedong He, Jun Zhou, Defeng Zhou, and Calvin Yu-Chian Chen
Neurocomputing, 2024
Ongoing Work
Optimization of Image Transmission with Channel and Content Preference Feedbacks in Cooperative Semantic Communication Networks
Defeng Zhou, Dongyu Wei, Siyao Li, and Mingzhe Chen
Semantic-Utility-Aware Cell-Free User-Centric Network
Defeng Zhou, Siyao Li, and Mingzhe Chen
Token Pruning in Autonomous Driving
Defeng Zhou, Dongyu Wei, and Mingzhe Chen
Awards
International
First Prize
12th Asia and Pacific Mathematical Contest in Modeling, with Best Programming Award and Best New Media Award · 2022
Domestic
Finalist & Silver Prize
LingxiGames Cup · 2023
13th MathorCup Mathematical Modeling Challenge · 2023
Scholarships
Academic Recognition
First Prize Scholarship (top 5%) · 2022
Third Prize Scholarship (top 25%) · 2023
Interdisciplinary Talent Award · 2023
Academic Service
TPC Member
IEEE International Conference on Communications; IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference
Journal Reviewer
IEEE JSAC, IEEE TMC, IEEE TCOM, IEEE TGCN, IEEE TCCN, Neural Computing and Applications, and IEEE Wireless Communications Letters
Conference Reviewer
IEEE WF-IoT, IEEE ICC, and IEEE INFOCOM
Teaching
Graduate Teaching AssistantDigital Design Laboratory