Zizhuo Zhang

About Me

I am a Ph.D. student at Trustworthy Machine Learning and Reasoning (TMLR) group in the Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), advised by Prof. Bo Han and Prof. Jiangchao Yao. Recently, my research focuses on Large Language Model (LLM) Post-training, including reinforcement learning (RL), LLM preference alignment, and LLM unlearning. Previously, I also gained research experience in Recommender System and AI4Science, including news recommendation and molecular docking. I received my MPhil Eng. degree and Bachelor Eng. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), advised by Prof. Bang Wang. I am always open to discussions and possible collaborations. Please feel free to email me if you would like to chat.

(* indicates equal contribution. Full list can be found on my Google Scholar .)

Prompt Learning for News Recommendation

Zizhuo Zhang, Bang Wang

SIGIR 2023 (Full paper, oral). [paper]. [code]

Fast and Accurate Blind Flexible Docking

Zizhuo Zhang, Lijun Wu, Kaiyuan Gao, Jiangchao Yao, Tao Qin, Bo Han

ICLR 2025. [paper]. [code]. [slides]

Co-rewarding: Stable Self-supervised RL for Eliciting Reasoning in Large Language Models

Zizhuo Zhang*, Jianing Zhu*, Xinmu Ge*, Zihua Zhao*, Zhanke Zhou, Xuan Li, Xiao Feng, Jiangchao Yao, Bo Han

Arxiv:2508.00410. NeurIPS 2025 Workshop MATH-AI. [paper]. [code]

Towards Understanding Valuable Preference Data for Large Language Model Alignment

Zizhuo Zhang, Qizhou Wang, Shanshan Ye, Jianing Zhu, Jiangchao Yao, Bo Han, Masashi Sugiyama

Arxiv:2510.13212. [paper].

Ph.D. Student, 2024.09 - Present
TMLR Group, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science
Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), Hong Kong SAR
MPhil Degree, 2019.09 - 2023.12
Information and Communication Engineering, School of Electronic Information and Communications
Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China
B.Eng. Degree, 2015.09 - 2019.06
Electronic Information Engineering, School of Electronic Information and Communications
Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China

HKBU Institute for Research, 2024.05 - 2024.08
Full-time research assistant, working with Dr. Qizhou Wang and Dr. Jianing Zhu, for research about large language model alignment.
Microsoft Research Asia, 2024.02 - 2024.05
Full-time internship as research internin Microsoft Research AI4Science, working with Dr. Lijun Wu on molecular docking.
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, 2018.07 - 2018.09
Full-time internship as software engineer intern in Huawei IaaS Service Product Department at CloudBU.

National Scholarship, 2021. National Scholarship, 2020, Ministry of Education, China
Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS) Nominee, 2024.
Research Performance Award, 2024-2025, HKBU.
Excellent Research Bronze Award of TMLR Group, 2024-2025.
Teaching Assistant Performance Award, 2024-2025, HKBU.
Excellent Postgraduate Cadre, 2021 and 2020, HUST.
Outstanding Graduates, 2019, HUST.
Industrial Scholarship: Huiding Technology Scholarship, 2022.
University Scholarship: Zhixing Scholarship, 2022, HUST.

Second Prize of Huawei Code Craft Challenge (Wuhan \& Changsha division), 2018.
Second Prize of National Undergraduate Electronics Design Contest (Hubei division), 2017.
Third Prize of Huazhong Mathematical Contest in Modeling, 2017.

(Assistance in following courses)

COMP7250(PG): Machine Learning, Spring (2026), HKBU.
COMP4096(UG): Business Intelligence and Decision Support, Autumn (2025), HKBU.
COMP4145(UG): Business Intelligence, Decision Support and Project Development, Autumn (2025), HKBU.
COMP7810(PG): Business Intelligence, Spring (2025), HKBU.