Robert Xiao
Research Scientist at University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolRobert Xiao is a research scientist and seasoned engineer with 15 years of experience blending HCI research, low-level systems programming, and security-minded reverse engineering. His open-source contributions span notable projects—improving libuvc USB video handling, enhancing Unicorn and mitmproxy bindings and async models, and reverse-engineering IL2CPP binaries—demonstrating deep expertise in device drivers, emulation, and binary analysis. A competitive CTF player, he translates exploit-driven thinking into robust code and tooling, and has improved Java/Python bindings and concurrency models in widely used projects. Based in Vancouver, he combines academic training from Waterloo and Carnegie Mellon with industry internships at Microsoft Research and RIM, often surfacing non-obvious protocol and ABI edge cases that increase reliability across platforms.
15 years of coding experience
Open Studies, Mathematics, Computer Science, Open Studies, Mathematics, Computer Science at University of SaskatchewanHigh School Diploma, Advanced Placement, High School Diploma, Advanced Placement at Walter Murray Collegiate InstituteCarnegie Mellon UniversityBachelor; Honours, Mathematics; Computer Science; Combinatorics & Optimization, Bachelor; Honours, Mathematics; Computer Science; Combinatorics & Optimization at University of Waterloo
English, Chinese
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
1answer
0questions
Github Skills (65)
mobile-development10
python10
metadata10
c1110
c1710
javas10
exp10
il2cpp10
emulation10
mjpeg10
app-framework10
video-streaming10
unity3d10
application-framework10
c-language10
Programming languages (16)
Github contributions (5)
pwning/public-writeup
Mar 2015 - Jan 2019
CTF write-ups by Plaid Parliament of Pwning
Role in this project:
Security Engineer
Security EngineerContributions:24 commits, 25 pushes in 3 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Robert primarily contributed writeups and exploit scripts for various CTF (Capture The Flag) challenges. These writeups detail vulnerabilities and exploitation techniques for a range of security-related tasks, including pwn challenges, crypto challenges, and web exploits. The code changes show the user's ability to analyze code, identify vulnerabilities, and construct payloads to achieve specific goals, such as gaining shell access or retrieving flags.
network-toolsctfwrite-upsplaidparliament
djkaty/Il2CppInspector
Apr 2020 - Jun 2020
Powerful automated tool for reverse engineering Unity IL2CPP binaries
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 review, 50 commits, 6 PRs in 2 months
Contributions summary:Robert primarily contributed to reverse engineering and analysis of Unity IL2CPP binaries. Their work involved modifying the tool to parse and interpret different versions of the IL2CPP metadata, which included fixing pointer extractions, adding support for new versions, and implementing support for VTables. They demonstrated a deep understanding of the IL2CPP binary structure and its evolution across various Unity versions.
il2cppbinariesunityengineeringmetadata
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