Zongpeng Li     
"It's very hard work to find that [perfect] design point, but it's very satisfying. It's a lot like mathematics because you're looking for the elegant solution" --- Barbara Liskov

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. My research program has been supported by:
  • University of Calgary
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
  • Alberta Ingenuity Fund (AIF)
  • The Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS)


  • My general research interests are in the science of computer networks. Particular topics of recent interest include:

  • Internet algorithms
  • Wireless networks, new physical layer techniques (cognitive radios, MIMO, physical layer network coding, interference alignment, beamforming)
  • Multicast
  • Network Coding
  • Network optimization based on mathematical programming, graph theory, combinatorics, and approximation algorithms
  • Network game theory


  • Publications List (with links to PDF)


    Journal articles:

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. Algorithms for Stochastic Optimization of Multicast Content Delivery with Network Coding. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (TOMCCAP), to appear.

    Chuan Wu, Zongpeng Li, Xuanjia Qiu, Francis C. M. Lau. Auction-based P2P VoD Streaming: Incentives and Optimal Scheduling. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (TOMCCAP), to appear.

    Ouldooz Baghban Karimi, Jiangchuan Liu, Zongpeng Li. Multicast with Cooperative Gateways in Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks. Elsevier Ad Hoc Networks Journal, to appear.

    Kaiyong Zhao, Xiaowen Chu, Zongpeng Li. Tsunami: Massively Parallel Homomorphic Hashing on Many-core GPUs. Concurrency and Computation, John Wiley & Sons, to appear.

    Shreya Maheshwar, Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. Bounding The Coding Advantage of Combination Network Coding in Undirected Networks. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (TIT), 58(2):, February 2012.

    Zongpeng Li, Xiaowen Chu. On Achieving Group Strategyproof Multicast. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), 23(x):, 2012.

    Hanan Shpungin, Zongpeng Li. Throughput and Energy Efficiency in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks with Gaussian Channels. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON), to appear.

    Fajun Chen, Yijie Wang, Jiangchuan Liu, Zongpeng Li. Probing-based Anypath Forwarding Routing Algorithms in Wireless Mesh Networks. Elsevier Ad Hoc Networks Journal, to appear.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. Group Strategyproof Multicast in Wireless Networks. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), 22(5):708-715, May 2011.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. Optimal Layered Multicast. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (TOMCCAP). 7(2), May 2011.

    Xiaowen Chu, Kaiyong Zhao, Zongpeng Li, Anirban Mahanti. Auction Based On-Demand P2P Min-Cost Media Streaming with Network Coding. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), 20(12):1816-1829, December 2009.

    Zongpeng Li, Carey Williamson. Enforcing Minimum-Cost Multicast Routing Against Selfish Information Flows . IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), 20(9):1299-1308, September 2009.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li, Lap Chi Lau. A Constant Bound on Throughput Improvement of Multicast Network Coding in Undirected Networks. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (TIT), 55(3):997-1015, March 2009.

    Phillipa Gill, Liqi Shi, Anirban Mahanti, Zongpeng Li, Derek L. Eager. Scalable On-demand Media Streaming for Heterogeneous Clients. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (TOMCCAP), 5(1):8:1-8:24, October 2008.

    Niklas Carlsson, Anirban Mahanti, Zongpeng Li, Derek L. Eager. Optimized Periodic Broadcast of Non-Linear Media. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia (TMM), 10(5):871-884, August 2008.

    Chuan Wu, Baochun Li, Zongpeng Li. Dynamic Bandwidth Auctions in Multi-overlay P2P Streaming with Network Coding. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), 19(6):806-820, June 2008.

    Jun Yuan, Zongpeng Li, Wei Yu, Baochun Li. A Cross-Layer Optimization Framework for Multihop Multicast in Wireless Mesh Networks. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communicatoins (JSAC), 24(11):2092-2103, November 2006.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li, Lap Chi Lau. On Achieving Maximum Multicast Throughput in Undirected Networks. Joint Special Issue on Networking and Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (TIT) and IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON), June 2006.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. Improving Throughput in Multi-hop Wireless Networks. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT), 55(3):762-773, May 2006.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. Probabilistic Power Management for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks. ACM/Kluwer Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET), 10(5):771-782, 2005.


    Conference papers:

    Xuanjia Qiu, Hongxing Li, Chuan Wu, Zongpeng Li, Francis C.M. Lau. Scheduling Video-on-Demand Services on Hybrid Clouds with Cost Minimization and QoS Guarantee, in the Proceedings of the 19th International Packet Video Workshop, Munich, Germany, May 10-11, 2012.

    Hongxing Li, Chuan Wu, Zongpeng Li, Wei Huang, Francis C. M. Lau. Stochastic Optimal Multirate Multicast in Socially Selfish Wireless Networks, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2012, Orlando, FL, USA, March 25-30, 2012.

    Yuefei Zhu, Baochun Li, Zongpeng Li. Truthful Spectrum Auction Design for Secondary Networks, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2012, Orlando, FL, USA, March 25-30, 2012.

    Yu Wu, Chuan Wu, Bo Li, Linquan Zhang, Zongpeng Li, Francis C. M. Lau. Scaling Social Media Applications into Geo-Distributed Clouds. in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2012, Orlando, FL, USA, March 25-30, 2012.

    Xunrui Yin, Xin Wang, Jin Zhao, Xiangyang Xue, Zongpeng Li. On Benefits of Network Coding in Bidirected Networks and Hyper-networks, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2012, Orlando, FL, USA, March 25-30, 2012.

    Xuanjia Qiu, Hongxing Li, Chuan Wu, Zongpeng Li, Francis C. M. Lau. Cost-Minimizing Dynamic Migration of Content Distribution Services into Hybrid Clouds, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2012, mini-conference, Orlando, FL, USA, March 25-30, 2012.

    Hongxing Li, Wei Huang, Chuan Wu, Zongpeng Li, Francis C. M. Lau. Utility-Maximizing Data Dissemination in Socially Selfish Cognitive Radio Networks, in the Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), Valencia, Spain, October 17-22, 2011.

    Hanan Shpungin, Zongpeng Li. Feasible Capacity of Distributed Beamforming in Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks, in the Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), Valencia, Spain, October 17-22, 2011.

    Ruiting Zhou, Zongpeng Li, Chuan Wu, Carey Williamson. Physical Layer Network Coding with Signal Alignment for MIMO Wireless Networks, in the Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), Valencia, Spain, October 17-22, 2011.

    Song Zhang, Niklas Carlsson, Derek Eager, Zongpeng Li, Anirban Mahanti. Design of a Dynamic File Bundling System for Large-scale Content Distribution, in the Proceedings of The 19th IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS), work in progress, Singapore, July 25-27, 2011.

    Xiaowei Chen, Xiaowen Chu, Zongpeng Li. Improving Sustainability of Private P2P Communities, in the Proceedings of The 20th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), Maui, Hawaii, USA, July 31-August 4, 2011.

    Hanan Shpungin, Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. Capacity Bounds for Energy Efficient Data Streaming in Homogeneous Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, in the Proceedings of The 8th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON), Salt Lake City, USA, June 27-30, 2011.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. Strategyproof Mechanisms for Content Delivery via Layered Multicast, in the Proceedings of IFIP/TC6 Networking 2011, Valencia, Spain, May 9-13, 2011.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li, Chuan Wu. Strategyproof Auctions for Balancing Social Welfare and Fairness in Secondary Spectrum Markets, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2011, Shanghai, China, April 10-15, 2011.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. A Prior-Free Revenue Maximizing Auction For Secondary Spectrum Access, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2011, mini-conference, Shanghai, China, April 10-15, 2011.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. Strategyproof Wireless Spectrum Auctions with Interference, in the Proceedings of IEEE GlobeCom 2010, Miami, Florida, December 6-10, 2010.

    Emeka Egbogah, Abraham O. Fapojuwo, Zongpeng Li. On the Performance of Network Coding for Multicast Data Delivery in Large Scale Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, in the Proceedings of IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), Ottawa, Canada, September 6-9, 2010.

    Nissan Lev-tov, Niklas Carlsson, Zongpeng Li, Carey Williamson, Song Zhang. Dynamic File-selection Policies for Bundling in BitTorrent-like Systems, in the Proceedings of IEEE IWQoS 2010, Beijing, China, June 16-18, 2010.

    Fajun Chen, Jiangchuan Liu, Zongpeng Li, Yijie Wang. Routing with Uncertainty in Wireless Mesh Networks, in the Proceedings of IEEE IWQoS 2010, Beijing, China, June 16-18, 2010.

    Hanan Shpungin, Zongpeng Li. Throughput and Energy Efficiency in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks with Gaussian Channels, in the Proceddings of the 7th IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON), Boston, Massachusetts, June 21-25, 2010.

    Ouldooz Baghban Karimi, Jiangchuan Liu, Zongpeng Li. Multicast in Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks, in the Proceedings of IFIP/TC6 Networking 2010, Chennai, India, May 10-14, 2010.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li, Carey Williamson. Optimal Multicast in Multi-Channel Multi-Radio Wireless Networks, in the Proceedings of 16th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS), Imperial College London, UK, September 21-23, 2009.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. Stochastic Multicast with Network Coding, in the Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 22-26, 2009.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. On Achieving Group Strategyproof Information Dissemination in Wireless Networks, in the Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Game Theory for Networks (GameNets), Istanbul, Turkey, May 13-15, 2009.

    Parthasarathy Ramanujam, Zongpeng Li, Lisa Higham. Shadow Prices vs. Vickrey Prices in Multipath Routing, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2009, mini conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 19-25, 2009.

    Ajay Gopinathan, Zongpeng Li. Optimal Layered Multicast with Network Coding: Mathematical Model and Empirical Studies, in the Proceedings of 16th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS), Baltimore, MD, USA, September 8-10, 2008.

    Phillipa Gill, Zongpeng Li, Anirban Mahanti, Jingxiang Luo, Carey Williamson. Network Information Flow in Network of Queues, in the Proceedings of 16th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS), Baltimore, MD, USA, September 8-10, 2008.

    Andrew Smith, Bryce Evans, Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. The Cost Advantage of Network Coding in Uniform Combinatorial Networks, in the Proceedings of the First IEEE Workshop on Wireless Network Coding (WiNC), San Francisco, California, USA, June 16, 2008.

    Phillipa Gill, Martin Arlitt, Zongpeng Li, Anirban Mahanti. The Flattening Internet Topology: Natural Evolution, Unsightly Barnacles or Contrived Collapse, in the Proceedings of the Ninth Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM), Cleveland, Ohio, April 29-30, 2008 (Best Paper Award).

    Zongpeng Li. Cross-Monotonic Multicast, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2008, Pheonix, Arizona, April 15-17, 2008.

    Phillipa Gill, Martin Arlitt, Zongpeng Li, Anirban Mahanti. Characterizing User Sessions on YouTube , in the Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Multimedia Computing and Networking Conference (MMCN), San Jose, CA, January 30-31, 2008.

    Phillipa Gill, Martin Arlitt, Zongpeng Li, Anirban Mahanti. YouTube Traffic Characterization: A View From the Edge , in the Proceedings of the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), San Diego, CA, October 24-26, 2007.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li, Mea Wang. Optimization Models for Streaming in Multihop Wireless Networks , in the Proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), Honolulu, Hawaii, August 13-16, 2007.

    Zongpeng Li, Min-Cost Multicast of Selfish Information Flows , in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2007, Anchorage, Alaska, May 6-12, 2007.

    Liqi Shi, Phillipa Sessini, Anirban Mahanti, Zongpeng Li, Derek Eager. Scalable Streaming for Heterogeneous Clients, in the Proceedings of ACM Multimedia 2006, Santa Barbara, CA, October 22-27, 2006.

    Zongpeng Li, Anirban Mahanti. A Progressive Flow Auction Approach for Low-Cost On-Demand P2P Media Streaming, in the Proceedings of The Third International Conference on Quality of Service in Heterogeneous Wired/Wireless Networks (QShine), Waterloo, Canada, August 7-9, 2006.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. On Increasing End-to-end Throughput in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, in the Proceedings of The Second International Conference on Quality of Service in Heterogeneous Wired/Wireless Networks (QShine), Orlando, Florida, August 22-24, 2005.

    Jun Yuan, Zongpeng Li, Wei Yu, Baochun Li. A Cross-Layer Optimization Framework for Multicast in Multi-hop Wireless Networks, in the Proceedings of The First IEEE International Conference on Wireless Internet (Wicon), Visegrad-Budapest, Hungary, July 10-15, 2005.

    Mea Wang, Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. A High-Throughput Overlay Multicast Infrastructure with Network Coding, in the Proceedings of IEEE IWQoS 2005, Passau, Germany, June 20-23, 2005.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li, Dan Jiang, Lap Chi Lau. On Achieving Optimal Throughput with Network Coding, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2005, Miami, Florida, March 13-17, 2005.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. Efficient and Distributed Computation of Maximum Multicast Rates, in the Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2005, Miami, Florida, March 13-17, 2005.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. Network Coding: The Case of Multiple Unicast Sessions, in the Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing (Allerton), Monticello, Illinois, September 29 - October 1, 2004.

    Mea Wang, Baochun Li, Zongpeng Li. sFlow: Towards Resource-Efficient and Agile Service Federation in Service Overlay Networks, in the Proceedings of the 24th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Tokyo, Japan, March 23-26, 2004.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li. Network Coding in Undirected Networks, in the proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS), Princeton, NJ, March 2004.

    Zongpeng Li, Baochun Li, Dongyan Xu, Xin Zhou. iFlow: Middleware-assisted Rendezvous-based Information Access for Mobile Ad Hoc Applications, in the Proceedings of the First ACM/USENIX International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys), San Francisco, CA, May 5-8, 2003.


    Books and Book chapters:

    Jiaqing Huang, Zongpeng Li. Network Coding Principles (in Chinese). China Defense Industry Press, 2012.

    Zongpeng Li, Hong Xu, Baochun Li. "Network Coding in Bi-directed and Peer-to-Peer Networks." Next-Generation Internet Architectures and Protocols, editors: Byrav Ramamurthy, George Rouskas, Krishna Sivalingam. Cambridge University Press, 2011.