Publications

Currently, my research focuses on LLM, Reasoning, Agent, RL and Efficiency.

2026

Length Value Model: Scalable Value Pretraining for Token-Level Length Modeling

COLM'26 Length Value Model: Scalable Value Pretraining for Token-Level Length Modeling

Zhen Zhang, Changyi Yang, Zijie Xia, Zhen Yang, Chengzhi Liu, Zhaotian Weng, Yepeng Liu, Haobo Chen, Jin Pan, Chenyang Zhao, Yuheng Bu, Alkesh Patel, Zhe Gan, Xin Eric Wang

Paper / Code / HuggingFace / Project

MathGen: Revealing the Illusion of Mathematical Competence through Text-to-Image Generation

arXiv MathGen: Revealing the Illusion of Mathematical Competence through Text-to-Image Generation

Ruiyao Liu, Hui Shen, Ping Zhang, Yunta Hsieh, Yifan Zhang, Jing Xu, Sicheng Chen, Junchen Li, Jiawei Lu, Jianing Ma, Jiaqi Mo, Qi Han, Zhen Zhang, Zhongwei Wan, Jing Xiong, Xin Wang, Ziyuan Liu, Hangrui Cao, Ngai Wong

Paper

CM2: Reinforcement Learning with Checklist Rewards for Multi-Turn and Multi-Step Agentic Tool Use

arXiv CM2: Reinforcement Learning with Checklist Rewards for Multi-Turn and Multi-Step Agentic Tool Use

Zhen Zhang, Kaiqiang Song, Xun Wang, Yebowen Hu, Weixiang Yan, Chenyang Zhao, Henry Peng Zou, Haoyun Deng, Sathish Reddy Indurthi, Shujian Liu, Simin Ma, Xiaoyang Wang, Xin Eric Wang, Song Wang

Paper / Code / HuggingFace

Group-Evolving Agents: Open-Ended Self-Improvement via Experience Sharing

COLM'26 Group-Evolving Agents: Open-Ended Self-Improvement via Experience Sharing

Zhaotian Weng, Antonis Antoniades, Deepak Nathani, Zhen Zhang, Xiao Pu, Xin Eric Wang

Paper / Code / Project

MMFormalizer: Multimodal Autoformalization in the Wild

arXiv MMFormalizer: Multimodal Autoformalization in the Wild

Jing Xiong, Qi Han, Yunta Hsieh, Hui Shen, Huajian Xin, Chaofan Tao, Chenyang Zhao, Hengyuan Zhang, Taiqiang Wu, Zhen Zhang, Haochen Wang, Zhongwei Wan, Lingpeng Kong, Ngai Wong

Paper / HuggingFace / Project

2025

Presenting a Paper is an Art: Self-Improvement Aesthetic Agents for Academic Presentations

arXiv Presenting a Paper is an Art: Self-Improvement Aesthetic Agents for Academic Presentations

Chengzhi Liu, Yuzhe Yang, Kaiwen Zhou, Zhen Zhang, Yue Fan, Yanan Xie, Peng Qi, Xin Eric Wang

Paper / Code / HuggingFace / Project

MAZO: Masked Zeroth-Order Optimization for Multi-Task Fine-Tuning of Large Language Models

EMNLP'25 MAZO: Masked Zeroth-Order Optimization for Multi-Task Fine-Tuning of Large Language Models

Zhen Zhang, Yifan Yang, Kai Zhen, Nathan Susanj, Athanasios Mouchtaris, Siegfried Kunzmann, Zheng Zhang

Paper

SharpZO: Hybrid Sharpness-Aware Vision Language Model Prompt Tuning via Forward-Only Passes

NeurIPS'25 SharpZO: Hybrid Sharpness-Aware Vision Language Model Prompt Tuning via Forward-Only Passes

Yifan Yang, Zhen Zhang, Rupak Vignesh Swaminathan, Jing Liu, Nathan Susanj, Zheng Zhang

Paper / Code / Project

Soft Thinking: Unlocking the Reasoning Potential of LLMs in Continuous Concept Space

NeurIPS'25 Soft Thinking: Unlocking the Reasoning Potential of LLMs in Continuous Concept Space

Zhen Zhang, Xuehai He, Weixiang Yan, Ao Shen, Chenyang Zhao, Shuohang Wang, Yelong Shen, Xin Eric Wang

Paper / Code / Project

APEX: Empowering LLMs with Physics-Based Task Planning for Real-time Insight

arXiv APEX: Empowering LLMs with Physics-Based Task Planning for Real-time Insight

Wanjing Huang, Weixiang Yan, Zhen Zhang, Ambuj Singh

Paper / Code

2024

Tool Learning with Foundation Models

ACM CSUR'24 Tool Learning with Foundation Models

Yujia Qin, Shengding Hu, Yankai Lin, Weize Chen, Ning Ding, Ganqu Cui, Zheni Zeng, Xuanhe Zhou, Yufei Huang, Chaojun Xiao, Chi Han, Yi Ren Fung, Yusheng Su, Huadong Wang, Cheng Qian, Runchu Tian, Kunlun Zhu, Shihao Liang, Xingyu Shen, Bokai Xu, Zhen Zhang, Yining Ye, Bowen Li, Ziwei Tang, Jing Yi, Yuzhang Zhu, Zhenning Dai, Lan Yan, Xin Cong, Yaxi Lu, Weilin Zhao, Yuxiang Huang, Junxi Yan, Xu Han, Xian Sun, Dahai Li, Jason Phang, Cheng Yang, Tongshuang Wu, Heng Ji, Guoliang Li, Zhiyuan Liu, Maosong Sun

Paper / Code

Advancing the Robustness of Large Language Models through Self-Denoised Smoothing

NAACL'24 Short Advancing the Robustness of Large Language Models through Self-Denoised Smoothing

Jiabao Ji*, Bairu Hou*, Zhen Zhang*, Guanhua Zhang*, Wenqi Fan, Qing Li, Yang Zhang, Gaowen Liu, Sijia Liu, Shiyu Chang

Paper / Code

2023

Parameter-Efficient Cross-Lingual Transfer of Vision and Language Models via Translation-Based Alignment

EMNLP'23 Findings Parameter-Efficient Cross-Lingual Transfer of Vision and Language Models via Translation-Based Alignment

Zhen Zhang, Jialu Wang, Xin Eric Wang

Paper / Code

OpenDelta: A Plug-and-Play Library for Parameter-Efficient Adaptation of Pre-Trained Models

ACL'23 Demo OpenDelta: A Plug-and-Play Library for Parameter-Efficient Adaptation of Pre-Trained Models

Shengding Hu, Ning Ding, Weilin Zhao, Xingtai Lv, Zhen Zhang, Zhiyuan Liu, Maosong Sun

Paper / Code

2022

Sparse Structure Search for Parameter-Efficient Tuning

NeurIPS'22 Sparse Structure Search for Parameter-Efficient Tuning

Shengding Hu*, Zhen Zhang*, Ning Ding, Yadao Wang, Yasheng Wang, Zhiyuan Liu, Maosong Sun

Paper