Youpeng Zhao
youpeng.zhao [at] ucf [dot] edu
I am on the job market for full-time research scientist/engineer positions. Email for CV if interested!
Brief Bio
I am a final-year PhD candidate at the University of Central Florida. I build efficient, scalable, and reliable machine learning systems (MLSys) for large-scale foundation models, such as large language models (LLMs). I am one of the cohorts for ML and System Rising Stars 2025.
| 08/2025 - 02/2026: | Student researcher at Google. I worked on post-training optimization for Gemini on-device deployment. |
| 05/2025 - 08/2025: | Research Intern at Microsoft Research. I worked on system-driven test-time scaling for reasoning models. |
| 05/2024 - 08/2024: | Research Intern at d-Matrix. I worked on system optimization for diffusion-based video generation models. |
| 03/2021 - 07/2022: | ML Researcher at Samsung Research China. I worked on efficient deep learning for Samsung mobile devices. |
Links
- Selected Publications. Full list can be found in my Google Scholar.
- LinkedIn.
- GitHub.
Fun Facts
- I used to play some elecctronic keyboard and won a national prize in 2008 🎹
- I played a bit college Esports (R6 Siege) and was the OG member of GT R6 Team in 2020 ⚔️
- My first name is Youpeng (
有朋 ), which in Chinese, means having friends from all over the world 🤓 - My English name is Kenneth, but people usually call me Ken or Kenny 😎
