People / Students / Class of 2027
Rui Zhou graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.S. in Financial Mathematics and Statistics. During his undergraduate studies, he developed a strong foundation in statistics, machine learning, and numerical methods. His research focused on machine learning for complex and high-dimensional data, including graph neural networks and information bottleneck methods for analyzing resting-state fMRI data, with an emphasis on improving the stability and reproducibility of graph information bottleneck models. He also conducted an independent study investigating the relationship between financial news sentiment and short-term stock volatility.
Beyond research, Rui has experience building and operating businesses in the food and beverage industry. He played a leading role in scaling a delivery-focused restaurant venture in Shenzhen to eight locations, with responsibilities spanning operations, product development, inventory, and data-informed decision making.
At Northwestern, Rui is interested in applied machine learning and embodied AI, particularly systems that can interact with and assist people in everyday physical environments. Through the MLDS program, he hopes to further develop his technical expertise while exploring how machine learning systems can be translated from research prototypes into useful, scalable products.
