Youheng Zhu’s Homepage

Hi! I’m Youheng. I’m interested in mathematics and statistical learning theory. I’m a first-year PhD student in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University, advised by Prof. Yiping Lu.

Before Northwestern, I had the fortune to work with Prof. Nan Jiang in the CS Department at UIUC starting in Summer 2024. I also had the privilege to work with Prof. Yuheng Bu in the ECE Department at the University of Florida starting in Summer 2023. I received my B.Eng. (with honors) from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in June 2025.

I like to study machine learning through the lens of function spaces, where powerful mathematical tools often lead to sharper results. I think “infinity” is one of the best inventions in mathematics—so I usually prefer working in continuous or infinite-dimensional settings rather than discrete or finite-dimensional ones. These spaces often offer richer structure, stronger analytical tools, and greater expressive power for modeling real-world problems.

I have broad research interests (and potential interests) in:

• Information theory and high-dimensional statistics
• Functional analysis, manifolds, and PDEs$^\dagger$
• Mean-field particle systems and statistical physics
• General machine learning theory
• LLM-based automatic theorem formalization and proving

I also have past experience in computer graphics and the lattice Boltzmann method.

Something more about me (subject to change):

• My favorite director is Ikuhara Kunihiko (幾原 邦彦)
• My favorite band is Sōtaisei Riron (相対性理論)
• My favorite voice-actress unit is Trysail
• My favorite music producer/composer is Yuki Kajiura (梶浦 由記), including her projects FictionJunction and Kalafina.
• I enjoy (arcade) rhythm games, and my favorite composer is Shiki (RIP).