Zhi-Qi Cheng (Preferred), Zhiqi Cheng


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Project Scientist, Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

Experienced in Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba

Intel Ph.D. Fellowship and IBM Outstanding Student Scholarship

Contributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning Analysis at The Washington Post Coverage

Emails: zhiqic@andrew.cmu.edu (or zhiqic@cs.cmu.edu) and zhiqicheng@gmaill.com (personal email)

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Biography

Zhi-Qi Cheng is a Project Scientist at the Language Technologies Institute (LTI), which is part of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He earned his B.S. in Computer Science from Southwest Jiaotong University in 2014 and completed his Ph.D. in 2019. During his doctoral studies, he was a visiting Ph.D. student at the City University of Hong Kong (2016-2017) and later at CMU (2017-2019). He also gained valuable experience through internships at Alibaba DAMO Academy (2016), Google Brain (2018), and Microsoft Research (2019). From 2019 to 2022, he served as a postdoctoral research associate at CMU. During his time at CMU, he made significant contributions to several key projects, including DARPA's AIDA, KAIROS, IARPA's DIVA, and NIST's PSIAP. Notably, on the DARPA KAIROS project, he was solely responsible for building the system for the entire CMU team. His research has had a substantial impact, such as being utilized in the Washington Post's coverage of the Capitol riots, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Additionally, he has been honored with the Intel Ph.D. Fellowship and IBM Outstanding Student Scholarship.

Research Interest

My research interest covers the following aspects:
  • Human Rights & Public Safety: Focusing on multimedia analysis and assessment to enhance public safety and protect human rights.
  • Visual E-commerce: Developing advanced multimodal retrieval and recommendation systems for e-commerce platforms.
  • Mobility21: Specializing in real-time streaming perception, detection, and tracking to improve mobility and autonomous driving.
  • Beyond Language Models: Exploring multimodal, knowledge-driven approaches for comprehensive understanding and interpretation in AI.

Awards

  • 2022: Pulitzer Prize for Public Service - Contributed to The Washington Post's analysis of the Capitol Riot. (2nd-ranked technical expert)
  • 2017-2019: Intel Ph.D. Fellowship - Recognition for excellence in AI, software technology, and semiconductor research.
  • 2017-2019: IBM Outstanding Students Scholarship - Awarded by IBM and Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) for top computer science researchers.
  • 2018: Huawei Scholarship - Recognition for excellent research in AI and communication technology.
  • 2016, 2018: Scales Figure Scholarship - Awarded to top talents in image processing research in China.
  • 2017: Tang Li Xin Scholarship - An exclusive scholarship with a 0.1% winning rate for students at top Chinese universities.
  • 2016: ACM SCF Best Student Paper Award - For outstanding student papers in the ACM SCF chapter.
  • 2014: Nominated for “Star of Self-improvement of Chinese University Students” - Annual award sponsored by the Chinese government, with a selection rate of top 0.01% of college students nationally. Recognized by China Youth Daily for outstanding achievement.
  • 2013: International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) Asian Regional Silver Medal - The ICPC is recognized globally for its challenging and competitive nature, attracting the best programming talent from colleges and universities.

Seeking Passionate Collaborators

I warmly invite students to collaborate with me throughout the year in groundbreaking research in generative models. If you're driven, self-motivated, and fascinated by the frontiers of text and image generation, I encourage you to reach out. Your enthusiasm and inquisitiveness are vital to our progress. Let's explore the possibilities together and make significant strides in the field of generative research. Email me to express your interest and become a part of our dynamic team.