Haoran Zhang

Hi! I am a first-year PhD student in WNCG Group, ECE UT-Austin, advised by Prof. Haris Vikalo. I previously completed my MS in ECE at CMU. During my time at CMU, I work with Prof. Carlee Joe-Wong on federated learning. I am also working with Prof. Marie Siew and Prof. Rachid El-Azouzi. I obtained my bachelor's degree in Automation from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. During the undergrad study, I worked on AI for healthcare with Prof. Hao Chen at HKUST, and Dr. Zhongliang Jiang at TUM.

Email  /  Resume [Template] /  Scholar  /  Github /  LinkedIn

Research

My ongoing research includes:
(1) Exploit extremely stale updates in federated learning,
(2) Parameter-effcient fine-tuning for LLMs in a federated manner,
(3) Hierarchical inference system with multiple tasks, models, layers, and nodes.
I am open to collaborations on related topics, please feel free to reach out.

My research at CMU: Federated Learning and Optimization

My research at HKUST: Medical AI

Some Presentations

Teaching and Mentoring

Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
  2025.08 - Present, Austin, USA
  
• M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Advanced Study), Carnegie Mellon University
  IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) member
  2023.08 - 2025.05, Pittsburgh, USA
  
• B.Eng. in Automation (Advanced Class), Huazhong University of Science and Technology
  Exchange student at Technical University of Munich (2023.04 - 2023.08)
  2019.09 - 2023.06, Wuhan, China

About Me

I was born in Xinxiang, China. My family name is 张 (Zhang), which is one of the most common family names in China. And my given name is 皓然 (Haoran), 皓(Hao) means "the color of the moon", 然(Ran) doesn't have a specific meaning, maybe it means "yeah, uh-huh". As the first in my family to attend college, I am deeply grateful for the support from my parents, mentors, and friends.

Template stolen from Jon Barron.
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