Researchers at the University of Houston’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) are earning major accolades for their work in computer science.
Dr. Rabimba Karanjai, Dr. Weidong Shi and their collaborator, Dr. Lei Xu from Kent State University, have been honored with the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award for groundbreaking advances in AI-assisted software security. The award was presented at AIware 2025, an ACM/IEEE International Conference focused on artificial intelligence in software engineering.
Their award-winning paper, Securing the Multi-Chain Ecosystem: A Unified, Agent-Based Framework for Vulnerability Repair in Solidity and Move, introduces Smartify, a state-of-the-art AI system capable of detecting and repairing bugs as code is being written. This gives developers real-time protection against critical vulnerabilities in blockchain smart contracts, which power today’s decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.
“This paper is about restoring trust and bringing stability to the decentralized finance (DeFi) space by automatically securing the foundational code that runs it,” said Dr. Shi.
The system continuously analyzes both human-written and AI-generated code, identifies unsafe patterns, and instantly generates secure patches. “Developers rely on AI tools more than ever,” said Karanjai. “This system acts like a co-programmer, alerting you to vulnerabilities the moment they appear and offering safer alternatives on the spot.”
By mimicking the workflow of a professional security audit team, Smartify operates faster and more accurately than current tools. This capability directly helps developers build more robust decentralized applications, drastically mitigating the risk of catastrophic hacks and exploits that have collectively cost the industry billions of dollars.
The importance of such technology is clear. Undetected vulnerabilities can remain hidden for years, with costly consequences. Karanjai cites the well-known OpenSSL flaw that went unnoticed for fourteen years with widespread impacts across the internet once exploited. Once exploited. Smartify aims to prevent similar long-term vulnerabilities in the blockchain space.
“Humans make mistakes, and AI can introduce new ones,” said Karanjai. “Our goal is to catch issues early before they become real risks.”
The paper was presented before leading experts in academia and industry, including companies like Google, Anthropic, and Amazon. Recognition at this level highlights UH NSM’s growing presence in high-impact AI and cybersecurity research.
Supported by an SUI grant and computing resources provided through the Google Developer Expert (GDE) program, the project is also expanding beyond smart contracts. Karanjai, Shi, and their collaborators are now applying similar techniques to high-performance computing, test case generation, and even areas such as customer analytics and medical data processing.
As UH strengthens its position in AI and software engineering, the Distinguished Paper Award demonstrates the innovative work emerging from NSM’s Department of Computer Science and the university’s increasing role in shaping the future of secure, reliable AI systems.
Read the full paper here: arxiv.org/abs/2502.18515