Xingyu Zhu 朱星宇

I am a second year PhD student in Computer Science at Princeton University, and I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Sanjeev Arora. In Dec. 2022 I graduated from Duke University with double major in Mathematics and Computer Science. At Duke I was fortunate to be advised by Professor Rong Ge. Prior to that I completed my middle school and high school education in the HS affiliated to Renmin University of China (人大附中).

Research Interests

My current interests spans broadly across theoretical and empirical ML. Recently I am especially interested in understanding the power of LLMs through a semi-theoretical perspective. During my undergraduate experiences, my research interest primarily lies on the field of optimization dynamics (especially non-convex optimization). In particular, I was interested in understanding how modern gradient-based algorithms works from a theoretical perspective and designing better algorithms leveraging the insights from such theoretical understandings. I am also broadly interested in theoretical computer science and algorithmic fairness.

Outside of academics, I play the electric guitar and do competitive cycling.