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PhD Students

PhD Students: L - R

Student Track: CSLS
Advisor(s): Horn, Michael
Cohort: September 2018
Email Nicholas

Cohort: September 2024
Email Quinn

Student Track: Systems
Research Area: Quantum Compilation, System Software for Quantum Computing
Cohort: September 2025
Research Statement: I'm a CS PhD student at Northwestern, specializing in quantum compilers and quantum system software. I focus on developing techniques that cut quantum computing costs and make quantum algorithms more practical.
Mu te's Website
Email Mu te

Cohort: September 2023
Email Dang

Student Track: Interfaces
Advisor(s): Nivedita Arora
Cohort: September 2026
Qitong's Website
Email Qitong

Cohort: September 2025
Email Yiquan

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Cohort: September 2023
Email Muhan

Student Track: Interfaces
Research Area: Computational Imaging, Computational Photography, Computer Vision
Advisor(s): Alexander, Emma
Cohort: September 2023
Expected Graduation Date: June 2028
Research Statement: My research interest is in the field of computational imaging and photography, which lies at the intersection of optics, signal processing, computer vision, and machine learning. Specifically, I study how generative priors, scene representations, and physics-based forward modeling can advance imaging — turning ill-posed measurements into faithful reconstructions of the world.
Tianao's Website
Email Tianao

Student Track: Systems
Research Area: Networking
Advisor(s): Kuzmanovic, Aleksandar
Cohort: September 2021
Expected Graduation Date: 2026
Research Statement: My research interests are general Networking topics including cloud computing and virtualization. I want to develop networked systems that focus on three perspectives: reducing latency, preserving privacy and utilizing edge servers. Currently, I am working on reducing web page loading time by moving the process of fetching web content from the remote servers to the edge servers.
Yanzhi's Website
Email Yanzhi

Student Track: Systems
Research Area: Databases
Advisor(s): Rogers, Jennie
Cohort: June 2021
Expected Graduation Date: June 2026
Research Statement: Broadly speaking, my research interests focus on security and privacy of computer science including verifiable query evaluation (DB), privacy-preserving machine learning (PPML), etc. In addition, my research heavily relies on cryptographical primitives and protocols from secure multiparty computation and zero knowledge proof.
Xiling's Website
Email Xiling

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: Time Series Prediction, Deep Learning Systems
Advisor(s): Liu, Han
Cohort: September 2019
Research Statement: My research interest is focused on large-scale multi-resolution and multi-horizon time series prediction. More specifically, I am interested in creating generic deep learning models that generate accurate predictions in various time series task settings and deep learning systems that power rapid computational experiments on super large scale time series data.
Weijian's Website
Email Weijian

Cohort: September 2024
Email Xin

Student Track: Interfaces
Cohort: September 2020
Expected Graduation Date: June 2026
Research Statement: My research interest lies in Computer Science and Cognitive Science, and I'm interested in understanding how the human brain works so that we can learn how to build an intelligent system that can be beneficial to human beings. In addition, I am also interested in thinking about how technology can be beneficial for people's well-being.
Chenghong's Website
Email Chenghong

Cohort: September 2025
Email Xuanyou

Cohort: September 2023
Email Peizhi

Student Track: Theory
Research Area: Scheduling algorithms
Advisor(s): Samir Khuller
Cohort: September 2023
Research Statement: I am interested in studying scheduling problems. Meanwhile, I am curious about learning more theoretical computer science and related math.
Mozhengfu's Website
Email Mozhengfu

Student Track: CSLS
Cohort: September 2021
Email Alexandros

Cohort: September 2025
Email Haoran

Cohort: September 2024
Email Shimin

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: Foundation Model
Advisor(s): Yan, Chen
Cohort: September 2022
Expected Graduation Date: June 2027
Research Statement: My research focuses on the learning aspects of AI—to enable efficiency (e.g., quantization robustness [ICML '24] [ICML '25] and parameter-efficient fine-tuning [ICML '25] [NeurIPS '25]) and safety ([USENIX Security '25]) in large language models ([ICLR '25]), large reasoning models, and multi-modal ([ES-FoMo@ICML '25]) environments. I am interested in: Large Foundation Models: Comprehensible Foundation Models, integrating modern Hopfield networks. [ICML '24] Responsible Foundation Models: encompassing jailbreaks, adversarial attacks, and risks associated with scientific foundation models. [USENIX Security '25] [arXiv] [MemFM@ICML '25] Accessible Foundation Models, incorporating PEFT, quantization, and outlier removal for efficient training and enhanced quantization robustness. [ICML '24] [ICML '25] [ES-FoMo@ICML '24] [ES-FoMo@ICML '25] Actionable Foundation Models, featuring the Chain of Thought and Chain of Action methodologies. [ICLR '25] [arXiv] Applications of Large Foundation Models, including Genomic Foundation Models and Human Mobility Foundation Models. [ICML '25] [Information Systems (2025)] [HuMob@SIGSPATIAL '24] [ES-FoMo@ICML '25] [NeurIPS '25] Memory retrieval, memory-enhanced models, and memory editing techniques. [MemFM@ICML '25] [arXiv] I am also broadly interested in the various applications of AI, e.g., Human Mobility ([NeurIPS '25][HuMob@SIGSPATIAL '24]), AI4Sci ([ICML '25]), and AI4Finance.
Haozheng's Website
Email Haozheng

Student Track: Interfaces
Advisor(s): Sam Kriegman
Cohort: January 2024

Student Track: CSLS
Cohort: 2022
Expected Graduation Date: 2027
Kritphong's Website
Email Kritphong

Cohort: September 2024
Email Lucas

Student Track: Systems and Networking
Advisor(s): Dinda, Peter
Cohort: September 2022
Email Kirill

Student Track: Artificial Intelligence
Research Area: Large Language Model, Diffusion Model, Graph Neural Network
Advisor(s): Liu, Han
Cohort: September 2024
Expected Graduation Date: March 2029
Zhenyu's Website
Email Zhenyu

Cohort: September 2023
Email Ilias

Student Track: Systems
Advisor(s): Dinda, Peter
Cohort: September 2022
Expected Graduation Date: June 2027
Michael's Website
Email Michael

Student Track: Theory
Email Phawin

Cohort: September 2024
Email Emilie