Hengyuan Zhang (张恒源)

Hengyuan Zhang (张恒源)

Tsinghua University

🤓 Hey folks! I am Hengyuan Zhang (张恒源 in Chinese). Before going to college, I grew up in Xiamen, a beautiful coastal city in China.

Currently, I am a master’s student (3rd year) at Tsinghua University under the supervision of Prof. Yong Jiang and Prof. Yujiu Yang.

📚 My research interests revolve around the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Data Mining in specialized domains such as Multilingualism, Education, and Cognitive Science. I aim to approach these studies in an interpretable manner, seeking deeper insights into complex phenomena. I am also particularly intrigued by the decision-making mechanisms integrated within models, eager to unravel their inner workings and enhance transparency. All in all, I aim to improve the speciality and interpretability of models, so as to make them more powerful and trustworthy in real-world applications.

📮 Looking ahead, I am exploring the possibility of enrolling in a Ph.D. program for the Fall of 2025. I am also keen on exploring opportunities for collaboration in research or projects. Please do not hesitate to contact me at your convenience.

📝 Publications

Preprint 2024
sym

ShifCon: Enhancing Non-Dominant Language Capabilities with a Shift-based Contrastive Framework

Hengyuan Zhang, Chenming Shang, Sizhe Wang, Dongdong Zhang, Feng Yao, Renliang Sun, Yiyao Yu, Yujiu Yang, Furu Wei

[Paper] [Code] Natural Language Processing, Multilingual, Interpretability in Parameter Conference Preprint
  • This paper aims to enhance the performance of non-dominant languages by projecting their representations into the dominant language space. We pinpoint the optimal layer area for shifting representations via a subspace distance metric. (OpenReview Score: [4, 4, 4.5])
ACL 2024
sym

Balancing Speciality and Versatility: A Coarse to Fine Framework for Mitigating Catastrophic Forgetting in Large Language Models

Hengyuan Zhang, Yanru Wu, Dawei Li, Zacc Yang, Rui Zhao, Yong Jiang, Fei Tan

[Paper] [Code] Natural Language Processing, Fine-tuning Technique, Interpretability in Parameter CCF-A Conference
  • This paper introduces a Coarse-to-Fine Fine-tuning framework (CoFiTune) that strikes a delicate balance between speciality and versatility. It pinpoints and updates specific modules that are crucial for speciality, while keeping other parameters frozen.
TKDD 2024
sym

A Question-centric Multi-experts Contrastive Learning Framework for Improving the Accuracy and Interpretability of Deep Sequential Knowledge Tracing Models

Hengyuan Zhang, Zitao Liu, Chenming Shang, Dawei Li, Yong Jiang

[Paper] [Code] Data Mining, Education Recommendation, Interpretability in Prediction JCR Q1 Journal
  • This paper proposes Q-MCKT framework, which utilizes an item response theory-based prediction layer to generate interpretable prediction results by simultaneously modeling knowledge acquisition and question difficulty.
  • NAACL 2025 BPO: Towards Balanced Preference Optimization between Knowledge Breadth and Depth in Alignment
    Sizhe Wang, Yongqi Tong, Hengyuan Zhang, Dawei Li, Xin Zhang, Tianlong Chen
    [Paper] | Natural Language Processing, Fine-tuning Technique | CCF-B Conference
  • Preprint 2025 Chain-of-Reasoning: Towards Unified Mathematical Reasoning in Large Language Models via a Multi-Paradigm Perspective
    Yiyao Yu, Yuxiang Zhang, Dongdong Zhang, Xiao Liang, Hengyuan Zhang, et al., Yujiu Yang, Furu Wei
    [Paper] | Natural Language Processing, Fine-tuning Technique | Conference Preprint
  • Preprint 2025 Quantifying the Robustness of Retrieval-Augmented Language Models Against Spurious Features in Grounding Data
    Shiping Yang, Jie Wu, Wenbiao Ding, et al., Hengyuan Zhang, Dongmei Zhang
    [Paper] | Natural Language Processing, Phenomenon Analysis | Conference Preprint
  • Preprint 2024 Improving Low-Resource Knowledge Tracing Tasks by Supervised Pre-training and Importance Mechanism Fine-tuning
    Hengyuan Zhang, Zitao Liu, Shuyan Huang, Chenming Shang, Bojun Zhan, Yong Jiang
    [Paper] | [Code] | Data Mining, Education Recommendation | Journal Preprint
  • Preprint 2024 Compositional Generalization Through Neuroscience-inspired Geometric Constraints on Representation Structure
    Chenming Shang, Shiji Zhou, Hengyuan Zhang, Xinchen Zhang, Lei Ke, Yuwang Wang, Yujiu Yang
    [Paper] | Computer Vision, Cognitive Science, Interpretability in Representation | Conference Preprint
  • CogSci 2024 Understanding Multimodal Deep Neural Networks: A Concept Selection View
    Chenming Shang, Hengyuan Zhang, Hao Wen, Yujiu Yang
    [Paper] | Computer Vision, Cognitive Science, Interpretability in Prediction | CCF-B Conference
  • CVPR 2024 Incremental Residual Concept Bottleneck Model
    Chenming Shang, Shiji Zhou, Hengyuan Zhang, Yujiu Yang, Xinzhe Ni, Yuwang Wang
    [Paper] | [Code] | Computer Vision, Cognitive Science, Interpretability in Prediction | CCF-A Conference
  • EMNLP 2023 Multi-level Contrastive Learning for Script-based Character Understanding
    Dawei Li, Hengyuan Zhang, Yanran Li, Shiping Yang
    [Paper] | [Code] | Natural Language Processing, Cognitive Science | CCF-B Conference
  • ACL 2023 BEA Assisting Language Learners: Automated Trans-Lingual Definition Generation via Contrastive Prompt Learning
    Hengyuan Zhang, Dawei Li, Yanran Li, Chenming Shang, Chufan Shi, Yong Jiang
    [Paper] | [Code] | Natural Language Processing, Education, Interpretability in Representation | CCF-A Conference
  • AACL 2022(Oral) Fine-grained Contrastive Learning for Definition Generation
    Hengyuan Zhang, Dawei Li, Shiping Yang, Yanran Li
    [Paper] | [Code] | Natural Language Processing, Education, Interpretability in Representation | Conference
  • ACL 2022 Multitasking Framework for Unsupervised Simple Definition Generation
    Cunliang Kong, Yun Chen, Hengyuan Zhang, Liner Yang, Erhong Yang
    [Paper] | [Code] | Natural Language Processing, Education, Interpretability in Representation | CCF-A Conference
  • NAACL 2022 SemEval SemEval-2022 Task 1: Cross-Attention Multitasking Framework for Definition Modeling
    Cunliang Kong, Yujie Wang, Ruining Chong, Liner Yang, Hengyuan Zhang, Erhong Yang
    [Paper] | [Code] | Natural Language Processing, Education, Interpretability in Representation | CCF-B Conference

💻 Interships

Xiaomi, AI Lab, Beijing

  • Mar. 2022 - Sept. 2022, Research Intern, working with Tong Chen and Yanran Li

Tencent, AI Lab, Shenzhen

  • Mar. 2023 - Jul. 2023, Research Intern, working with Wei Bi

Sensetime, Research, Shenzhen

  • Aug. 2023 - Mar. 2024, Research Intern, working with Fei Tan

Microsoft Research Asia, Natural Language Computing (NLC) Group, Beijing

  • Mar. 2024 - Dec. 2024, Research Intern, working with DongDong Zhang
    • I got the “Microsoft Stars of Tomorrow” Award during the internship


🏅 Selected Honors and Awards

👉  Tsinghua University Comprehensive First-Class Scholarship (Top 3%, RMB ¥ 10,000) | 2024

👉  Tsinghua University General Excellence Scholarship (Top 5%, RMB ¥ 4,000) | 2023

👉  National Scholarship (Top 1%, RMB ¥ 8,000) | 2019, 2020, 2021

👉  Outstanding Graduate Student of Beijing (Top 3%) | 2022

👉  Excellent League Member of Beijing (Top 3%) | 2021

👉  Merit Student of Beijing (Top 3%) | 2021

👉  Meritorious Winner of Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (Top 5%) | 2021

👉  Computer Design Competition National Second Prize (Top 5%) | 2020

👉  CUMCM-Beijing Area First Prize (Top 5%) | 2020

👉  Xiaomi Third Hacker Marathon Excellence (Top 7%, RMB ¥ 3,000) | 2022


📌 Miscellaneous

Image 1 Image 2


Image 1 Image 2