Zheyuan "Brian" Zhang

I am currently doing a research intern on Embodied AI, supervised by Professor Chuang Gan. I graduated with an MS in Robotics from the Robotics Institute and a Graduate Certificate in Cognitive Science from the Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of Michigan. I was a research assistant at the Situated Language and Embodied Dialogue (SLED) lab, advised by Professor Joyce Chai. I was also fortunate to work with Professor Honglak Lee, Professor Freda Shi, Professor Parisa Kordjamshidi. I did a BS in Computer Science from UMass Amherst, College of Information & Computer Sciences.

I am applying for 2025 Fall PhD position.

Email  /  CV  /  Scholar  /  Twitter  /  Github  /  Reading List

profile photo

Research

I am fascinated with understanding natural intelligence through computational modeling. My current research interests are centered around Embodied AI, Multimodality, and Language, with the goal to create Scalable Cognitive Agents that perceive, act, and learn like humans in physical and virtual worlds. In the future, I am planning to explore Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computing, AI for Science, and AI for Psychology.

News

  • [2024.11] One paper accepted to COLING 2025.
  • [2024.10] COMFORT accepted to Pluralistic Alignment @ NeurIPS 2024.
  • [2024.10] EILeV accepted to Video-Language Models @ NeurIPS 2024.
  • [2024.09] EILeV accepted to EMNLP 2024.
  • [2023.10] HAR accepted to EMNLP 2023.

Preprints
img_comfort Do Vision-Language Models Represent Space and How? Evaluating Spatial Frame of Reference Under Ambiguities
Zheyuan Zhang*, Fengyuan Hu*, Jayjun Lee*, Freda Shi, Parisa Kordjamshidi, Joyce Chai, Ziqiao Ma
Pluralistic Alignment @ NeurIPS 2024
Project Page | Paper | Code | Dataset
img_comfort Explainable Procedural Mistake Detection
Shane Storks, Itamar Bar-Yossef, Yayuan Li, Zheyuan Zhang, Jason J. Corso, Joyce Chai
arXiv, 2024
Paper | Code
img_combo COMBO: Compositional World Models for Embodied Multi-Agent Cooperation
Hongxin Zhang*, Zeyuan Wang*, Qiushi Lyu*, Zheyuan Zhang, Sunli Chen, Tianmin Shu, Yilun Du, Chuang Gan
arXiv, 2024
Project Page | Paper | Code

Publications
img_combo A Combinatorial Approach to Neural Emergent Communication
Zheyuan Zhang
International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING), 2025
Paper
img_eilev EILeV: Eliciting In-Context Learning in Vision-Language Models for Videos Through Curated Data Distributional Properties
Keunwoo Peter Yu, Zheyuan Zhang, Fengyuan Hu, Shane Storks, Joyce Chai
Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP), 2024
Video-Language Models @ NeurIPS 2024
Paper | Code
img_har From Heuristic to Analytic: Cognitively Motivated Strategies for Coherent Physical Commonsense Reasoning
Zheyuan Zhang*, Shane Storks*, Fengyuan Hu, Sungryull Sohn, Moontae Lee, Honglak Lee, Joyce Chai
Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP), 2023
Paper | Code
img_lsvrg Low-cost Solution for Vision-based Robotic Grasping
Zheyuan Zhang, Huiliang Shang
International Conference on Networking Systems of AI (INSAI), IEEE Computer Society, 2021
(Second Prize)
Paper | Code (110 )

Other Projects
img_botlab Bot Lab: Autonomous Ground Vehicle from Low-level Control, SLAM to Planning and Exploration
Zheyuan Zhang, Yu Zhu, Manu Aatitya Raajan Priyadharshini, Thirumalaesh Ashokkumar
ROB 550 (Robotic Systems Laboratory), University of Michigan, 2022
Paper

Teaching
img_umich Graduate Student Instructor (GSI), EECS 492 (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence), University of Michigan
Winter 2024, Fall 2023

Textbook: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 4th Edition

Academic Services

  • Conference Reviewer: ICLR 2025, NeurIPS 2024 Workshop

My hobbies

  • Movie & TV: Suspense dramas and fantasy animes; Fan of "A Mortal's Journey" (凡人修仙传).
  • Gaming: I used to play competitive FPS games like Rainbow Six Siege (R6s), Valorant and Apex Legends. I achieved the highest ranks in R6s for 10 seasons (5x champion, 5x diamond).
  • Bodybuilding: Lift weights and train physique.
  • HiFi: I am an audiophile. Some HiFi devices I have:
    • IEM: Astell&Kern x Vision Ears Aura
    • IEM: Raosound Black Oriolus 1st Edition
    • Headphone: HiFiMAN Edition X V1
    • DAP: Astell&Kern A&ultima SP3000
    • DAP: Lotoo PAW Gold
    • DAP: Sony PCM D100
  • Fragrance: Collect fragrances.

Source code borrowed from Jon Barron's website.