Duke University CEI Lab Durham, NC

Research Assistant Fall 2024 – Present

• Working with Dr. Yiran Chen on interdisciplinary research combining statistics, computer science, and applied mathematics
• Focus on efficient and scalable algorithms for machine learning and deep learning
• Contributing to research in machine learning systems and high-performance computing

Sparstitute, Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC

Research Assistant Spring 2022 – Present

• Conducted extensive research on scalable and communication-avoiding kernel machine learning algorithms (Ridge Regression, SVM, ElasticNets)
• Developed novel kernel methods and optimization algorithms and experimented with S-step optimization algorithms to improve kernel function computation and optimization
• Utilized C programming and high-performance computer clusters for parallel computing with OpenMPI
• Performed sparsity analysis and compressed sparse row matrix operations using sparseblas and mkl packages
• Employed libsvm (version 3.31) for dataset selection and model training
• Mentored by Dr. Aditya Devarakonda (devaraa@wfu.edu)

Wake Forest IRSC Laboratory Winston-Salem, NC

Research Assistant Spring 2022 – Spring 2024

• Conducted computer vision research projects utilizing Histogram of Gradients, SIFT filters, and Support Vector Machine for palm tree detection in orthomosaic plots collected from Peruvian Rain Forest
• Applied deep learning methods such as RestNet and Faster-R-CNN for semantic segmentation and classification of objects
• Utilized quantitative methods in Python, including OpenCV, Scikit-image, and Scikit-learn, for image data processing
• Evaluated model performance with visualization tools such as Seaborn and OpenCV, and metrics including ROC, AUC curve, confusion matrix, sensitivity, specificity, and hyperparameter tuning
• Mentored by Victor Pauca (paucavp@wfu.edu)

Current Research Focus

My current research at Duke University focuses on:

• Efficient and Scalable Algorithms for Large-Language Models & Diffusion
• Machine Learning Systems (MLSys) and High-Performance Computing (HPC)
• Optimization methods for large-scale machine learning problems

Publications

In-Submission

• FlashSVD: Memory Efficient Approach for SVD-Based Low Rank Model Inference
  Zishan Shao, Yixiao Wang, Qinsi Wang, Ting Jiang, Zhixu Du, Hancheng Ye, Danyang Zhuo, Yiran Chen, Hai Li
  In submission to Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI ‘26)
  PDF

• Enhanced Cyclic Coordinate Descent Methods for Elastic Net Penalized Linear Models
  Zishan Shao*, Yixiao Wang*, Ting Jiang, Aditya Devarakonda
  In submission to Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS ‘25)

Published & Accepted

📚 Academic Profiles: Google Scholar

• SADA: Stability-guided Adaptive Diffusion Acceleration Ting Jiang*, Hancheng Ye*, Yixiao Wang*, Zishan Shao, Jingwei Sun, Jingyang Zhang, Jianyi Zhang, Zekai Chen, Yiran Chen, Hai Li
  International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML ‘25 Poster)
  PDF

• Scalable Dual Coordinate Descent for Kernel Methods
  Zishan Shao, Aditya Devarakonda
  International Conference on High Performance Computing in Asia-Pacific Region (HPCAsia ‘25, CORE B)
  🏆 Outstanding Paper Award
  PDF

• PalmProbNet: A Probabilistic Approach to Understanding Palm Distributions in Ecuadorian Tropical Forest via Transfer Learning
  Kangning Cui, Zishan Shao, Gregory Larsen, Victor Pauca, Sarra Alqahtani, David Segurado, Joao Pinheiro, Manqi Wang, David Lutz, Robert Plemmons, Miles Silman
  Proceedings of 2024 ACM-Southeast (ACM-SE ‘24) PDF

Professional Service

• Reviewer, AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2025)

Mentoring Experience

Data+ Project Manager, Duke Rhodes iiD, Duke University
Summer 2025
Advisor: Dr. Gregory Herschlag
Mentored a three-person team on textual analysis in agricultural research

Peer Tutor, Center for Learning, Access, and Student Success (CLASS), Wake Forest University
October 2021 – December 2023
Provided on-site computer science tutoring and study support for undergraduates

Honors & Awards

• 🏆 Outstanding Paper Award, HPCAsia ‘25 Conference
• 🏆 Meritorious Winner, COMAP Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) 2022
• Phi Beta Kappa, Honorary Member
• Upsilon Pi Epsilon, Honorary Member
• Dean’s List Scholar, all semesters
• Wake Forest Research Fellowship (2023)
• George Washington Greene Scholarship (2023), one of seven recipients
• Upsilon Pi Epsilon Scholarship (2023)