Haoxian Chen

Projects

Explainable network synthesis

Automatic network configuration synthesis from high-level intents has improved network management efficiency and robustness. However, the complexity and dynamic nature of networks often make it difficult for administrators to understand and trust these generated configurations. Our project addresses this issue by using localized subspecifications to enhance explainability, thereby boosting administrators' confidence and trust in adopting automatic network management tools.

Project: SpecLens.
Explain correct configurations [SIGCOMM'26].
Explain configurations under failures [FMANO'26].
Characterize repair spaces [APNet'26].
Earlier work on localized explanations [HotNets'24, FMANO'24].
Rule discovery

Entity-enhancing rules offer a principled way to unify logic-based reasoning with machine learning models for knowledge discovery. We design scalable parallel algorithms for discovering logical rules from large datasets, with a focus on incremental discovery under dynamic data, parameter changes, and hyperparameter tuning.

On parameter updates: [SIGMOD'25].
Declarative programming for Ethereum smart contracts

We design and implement a declarative domain-specific language for Ethereum smart contracts, which allows programmers to succinctly express contract logic via declarative rules, and perform automatic formal verification.

[ASE'26, ICSE'24, FSE'22]
[FSE Talk] [Project Code]
Featured in Smart Contract Research Forum.
Example-driven network protocol specification synthesis

We propose a tool to synthesize network protocol specifications from input-output examples. The goal is to reduce the effort and expertise required to specify formal models for network protocols, thus accelerating the adoption of formal methods in networking practice.

[ToN'22]
[Project Code]

Publications

Explainable Network Verification via Localized Subspecification

SIGCOMM'26

Yongzheng Zhang, Yaxuan Lin, Haoxian Chen, Ruize Ma, Amirmohammad Nazari, Mukund Raghothaman, Peng Zhang

[PDF] [Project]
Smart Contract Synthesis via Multi-modal Specifications

ASE'26

Tanglin Chen, Haoxian Chen, Huilin Xiang, Yuepeng Wang

[PDF]
Characterizing Network Configuration Repair Spaces with Localized Subspecifications

APNet'26

Yongzheng Zhang, Haoxian Chen

[PDF]
Explaining Network Configurations Under Failures via Localized Subspecifications

FMANO'26

Yaxuan Lin, Yongzheng Zhang, Haoxian Chen

[PDF]
Incremental Rule Discovery in Response to Parameter Updates

SIGMOD'25

Haoxian Chen, Wenfei Fan, Jiaye Zheng

[PDF]
Localized Explanations for Automatically Synthesized Network Configurations

HotNets'24

Amirmohammad Nazari*, Yongzheng Zhang*, Mukund Raghothaman, Haoxian Chen (* co-first authors)

[PDF]
Practical Declarative Smart Contracts Optimization

FAB'24

Lan Lu, Tao Luo, Jingyi Li, Hongxun Ding, Brendan Massey, Haoxian Chen, Boon Thau Loo
Interpretable Network Synthesis via Localized Specifications

FMANO'24

Haoxian Chen

[PDF]
Verifying Declarative Smart Contracts

ICSE'24

Haoxian Chen, Lan Lu, Brendan Massey, Yuepeng Wang, Boon Thau Loo

[PDF]
Declarative Smart Contracts

FSE'22

Haoxian Chen, Gerald Whitters, Mohammad Javad Amiri, Yuepeng Wang, Boon Thau Loo

[PDF]
Synthesizing Formal Network Specifications from Input-Output Examples

ToN'22

Haoxian Chen, Chenyuan Wu, Andrew Zhao, Mukund Raghothaman, Mayur Naik, Boon Thau Loo

[PDF]
Interpretable Feedback for AutoML and a Proposal for Domain-customized AutoML for Networking

HotNets'21

Behnaz Arzani, Kevin Hsieh, Haoxian Chen

[PDF]
Towards Example-Guided Network Synthesis

APNET'18

Haoxian Chen, Anduo Wang, and Boon Thau Loo.

[PDF]
LHD: Improving Cache Hit Rate by Maximizing Hit Density

NSDI'18

Nathan Beckmann, Haoxian Chen, and Asaf Cidon.

[PDF]
SDPA: Toward a Stateful Data Plane in Software-Defined Networking

TON'17

Chen Sun, Jun Bi, Haoxian Chen, Hongxin Hu, Zhilong Zheng, Shuyong Zhu, and Chenghui Wu.

[PDF]
Felix: Implementing Traffic Measurement on End Hosts Using Program Analysis

SOSR'16

Haoxian Chen, Nate Foster, Jake Silverman, Michael Whittaker, Brandon Zhang, and Rene Zhang.

[PDF]

Haoxian Chen (陈浩贤)

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