Zhongkai Xue

Zhongkai Xue

New Haven, U.S. | email | website | scholar | github | twitter | résumé
春日宴,綠酒一杯歌一遍
"A springtide banquet, green wine in hand -- and lo, the song is sung but once, then lost to time."

Objective

I am an undergraduate with a goal of pursuing a PhD in Computer Science starting in Fall 2026. My research interest spans broadly across multimodal foundation models and intersectional domains. I am always open to embracing new opportunities!

Education

🎓 Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
Bachelor in Financial Engineering • GPA: 3.85 / 4.0 (Top 4%)
Sep 2022 - Jun 2026
🎓 University of Oxford
Exchange Student in Math & Statistics, St Hilda's College • Grade: A
Oct 2024 - Mar 2025

Research Experience

🔬 Visiting Intern -- Graph and Geometric Learning Lab, Yale
Topic: Foundation Models, Hyperbolic Learning, RAG • Host: Rex Ying
Apr 2025 - Sep 2025
  • To explore cross-modality hierarchical relationships through hyperbolic representation.
  • To unleash the potential of hyperbolic methods in RAG for greater efficiency and performance.
🔬 RA -- Learning of Graph and Optimization (LOGO) Lab, CUHK-SZ
Topic: Graph Representation & Reasoning • Advisor: Tianshu Yu
Jan 2025 - Jun 2026
  • Explored the graph-structured data representation and reasoning in the era of LLMs.
  • Investigated the potential of molecular graph pretraining and applied it to real-world problems.

Publications

📄 Paper 1 to reveal
Preprint -- A, B, C, D
📄 Paper 2 to reveal
Preprint -- A, B, C, D, E
📄 Political-LLM: Large Language Models in Political Science
Under review '25 -- Lincan Li, Jiaqi Li, Catherine Chen ... Zhongkai Xue ... Yue Zhao, Yushun Dong et al.
Abstract: We propose Political-LLM, a framework that bridges large language models with political science. It provides a dual-perspective taxonomy—political tasks and computational methods—while outlining key challenges and future directions, aiming to guide ethical and effective AI use in political research.
[arxiv] [site]
📄 MJ-VIDEO: Fine-Grained Benchmarking and Rewarding Video Preferences in Video Generation
Under review '25 -- Haibo Tong, Zhaoyang Wang, Zhaorun Chen ... Zhongkai Xue ... Huaxiu Yao, et al.
Abstract: We present MJ-VIDEO, a Mixture-of-Experts reward model for fine-grained video preference evaluation, built upon MJ-BENCH-VIDEO, a large-scale benchmark covering alignment, safety, coherence, and bias. Our model achieves significant improvements in preference judgment and enhances alignment in video generation.
[arxiv] [code] [site]

Industry Experience

📊 Research Engineer -- Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data (SRIBD)
Project: LLM Deployment in Medical Service Workflows
Oct 2024 - Jan 2025
  • Developed a prototype pipeline integrating LLMs with medical imaging data for clinical decision support.
  • Engineered a system tailored to data, achieving a 20% reduction in response time across test scenarios.
📊 Quantitative Researcher -- Jupyter (Ju Bo Hua) Investment, Shenzhen
Project: GNNs for Order Flow Modeling • Leader: Guixian Lin
Jun 2024 - Oct 2024
  • Designed and implemented GNN architectures to capture temporal patterns in high-frequency trading data.
  • Achieved a 12.7% improvement in prediction acc over baseline, parts adopted for live trading evaluation.

Awards & Scholarship

🏅 Dean's List x2, Undergraduate Research Award -- School of Data Science, CUHK-SZ

🥈 Silver Medal (Top 2%), Kaggle '23 Data Science Competition -- Trading at the Close

Misc

👨‍🏫 Teaching: I was Undergraduate TA of FIN2010 (Financial Management) and CSC3002 (Introduction to C++) at CUHK-SZ.

📷 Interest: I enjoy analog photography in my free time -- I am a Canon A1 camera holder and spend much on different films.