Yan Huo *94 fellowship supports advances in internet privacy, wireless communication and large language models

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Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Jan. 21, 2025

Three fourth-year graduate students in electrical and computer engineering received the annual Yan Huo *94 Graduate Fellowship, supporting their work in internet privacy and security, wireless communication devices, and large language models.

Jiachen (Tianhao) Wang develops theoretical foundations and practical tools for trustworthy machine learning from a data-centric perspective. Most recently, his research has centered on developing scalable, theory-driven methods for data attribution and curation in foundation models. He explores applications of these techniques in several areas including interpretability, data copyright, and data economics. He is a recipient of the Pramod Subramanyan *17 Early Career Graduate Award in 2023. He holds a bachelor’s degree in statistics and computer science from the University of Waterloo and a master's degree from Harvard University. He is advised by Prateek Mittal. 

Ruiyi Shen specializes in the physical-layer design of next-generation wireless communication and sensing systems. His research focuses on novel architectures to scale the capacity of wireless communication links and enhance the robustness of state-of-the-art remote sensing systems, particularly at millimeter-wave and sub-terahertz frequencies. Ruiyi is a Semiconductor Research Corporation Research Scholar and a recipient of the Pramod Subramanyan *17 Early Career Graduate Award in 2024. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California. He is advised by Yasaman Ghasempour.

Hengrui Zhang focuses on accelerating large language models with system and architecture co-optimization, aiming at improving hardware efficiency to make large language models more widely accessible. He developed an architectural modeling tool that integrates key hardware details, offering a fast and detailed evaluation to improve chip and system design for large language models. He is leveraging the design of this system to think holistically about future GPU and LLM designs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in microelectronics from Tsinghua University. He is advised by David Wentzlaff.