David Zhang 张博诚

David Zhang David Zhang Jedi

I care about loving God and people.

Undergraduate student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, studying Computer Science and Physics.

My research interests lie in reinforcement learning with agents. I want to build smart, autonomous, tool-using agents. Currently a researcher at ULab UIUC, advised by Professor Jiaxuan You. I'm super grateful to have a group of people with similar goals on building smarter intelligence.

Previously, I collaborated with the NVIDIA math reasoning team through Dr. Branislav Kisacanin, where I designed the math olympiad dataset for our published study. For two years in high school I worked with the amazing QMCPy team, advised by Professsor Fred Hickernell and designed many randomization techniques.

Also super thankful to be part of the 2025 Heidelberg Laureate Forum as a Young Researcher! I was able to have meaningful conversations with many legendary figures like Richard Sutton, David Silver, Pat Hanrahan, Sanjeev Aurora, Ngo Bao Chau, Jack Dongarra, Bob Tarjan and many more!

Awards

  • Heidelberg Laureate Forum — Selected Young Researcher (2025)
  • MCM/ICM — Meritorious Winner (top 8%) (2023)
  • USAMO — Qualifier (2023)

Publications

Ethical AI Podcast

Writings

Math Notes