Daniel(Shengjun) Zhang

Ph.D. Candidate
University of North Texas

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Email: sz0160 [at] unt.edu
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Hey there!

My name is Shengjun Zhang (张圣军 in Chinese) or just call me Daniel. I am a Ph.D. candidate at University of North Texas, advised by professor Colleen Bailey since 2019 summer and affiliated with Optimization, Signal, Control, and Algorithms Research (OSCAR Lab) . Before joining OSCAR Lab, since 2018 I had been fortunate to work with professor Tao Yang before he left UNT for one year and a half.

Before coming to UNT, I received a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering at New York University in 2017, where I worked with professor Farshad Khorrami on a project about controlling an unmanned ground vehicle platform.I received a Bachelor's degree with honor in Automation of Honors Program at China Agricultural University in 2014, where I worked with professor Jianhan Lin and professor Li Li on a project about controlling a biomedical device.

In 2018 summer, I was also fortunate to visit professor Ye Yuan's group at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, working on accelerating distributed optimization of multi-agent systems.

Research Interests

My research focuses on providing fundamental understandings of distributed optimization from a point of view of control theory, which discovers why and how distributed training algorithms work and why they are doing what they are doing mathematically. Inspired by the theoretical insights, I seek to design distributed training algorithms that can be able to be seamlessly scaled to a large number of computing nodes.

I am interested in statistical learning, sparse PCA, machine learning, control theory, robotics, reinforcement learning, distributed optimization.

Academic Experience

   Huazhong University of Science and Technology
      Summer 2018
      Visiting Scholar

Education

   University of North Texas
      Jan. 2018 -- Present
      Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering
      CGPA: 4.0/4.0

   New York University
      Jan. 2015 -- Jan. 2017
      M.S. in Electrical Engineering
      CGPA: 3.5/4.0

   China Agricultural University
      Aug. 2010 -- July. 2014
      B.Eng. in Automation of Honors Program
      CGPA: 3.6/4.0, ranking: top 10%


Publication and Preprints

Journal Papers

Event-triggered Based Distributed Optimization Algorithms (in Chinese)
Tao Yang, Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Ruijuan Chen, Yuzhe Li
ACTA AUTOMATICA SINICA (自动化学报) (Under Review)
A Primal-Dual SGD Algorithm for Distributed Nonconvex Optimization
Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Tianyou Chai, Karl H. Johansson
SIAM Journal on Optimization (Under Review) / paper
Linear Convergence of First- and Zeroth-Order Primal-Dual Algorithms for Distributed Nonconvex Optimization
Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Tianyou Chai, Karl H. Johansson
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (Under Review) / paper
Sublinear and Linear Convergence of ADMM for Distributed Nonconvex Optimization
Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Tianyou Chai, Karl H. Johansson
IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems (Under Review)
A Magnetic Nanoparticle Based Nucleic Acid Isolation and Purification Instrument for DNA Extraction of Escherichia Coli O157: H7
Yahui Chen, Jianhan Lin, Qing Jiang, Qi Chen, Shengjun Zhang, Li Li,
Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology / paper

Conference Papers

A Primal-Dual Algorithm for Distributed Sparse Principal Component Analysis
Shengjun Zhang, Colleen Bailey
ICASSP 2021: IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (Under Review)
Zeroth-order Algorithms for Distributed Stochastic Nonconvex Optimization
Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Tianyou Chai, Karl H. Johansson
ICLR 2021: International Conference on Learning Representations OR COLT 2021: Conference on Learning Theory (In Submission)
Optimal Control Under Communication Constraints for Multi-agent Unmanned Vehicles
Daniel Zhang, Colleen Bailey
SPIE Security + Defence 2020: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Defense Applications II
paper / slides / video
Linear Convergence for Distributed Optimization Without Strong Convexity
Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Tianyou Chai, Karl H. Johansson
CDC 2020: 59th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control
Obstacle Avoidance and Navigation Utilizing Reinforcement Learning with Reward Shaping
Daniel Zhang, Colleen Bailey
SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing 2020: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Multi-Domain Operations Applications II
paper / slides / video / poster
Exponential Convergence for Distributed Smooth Optimization Under the Restricted Secant Inequality Condition
Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Tianyou Chai, Karl H. Johansson
IFAC 2020: 21st IFAC World Congress
paper / slides
Computational Convergence Analysis of Distributed Optimization Algorithms for Directed Graphs
Shengjun Zhang, Xinlei Yi, Jemin George, Tao Yang
ICCA 2019: 15th IEEE International Conference on Control and Automation (Best Student Paper Shorten List)
paper
Event-Triggered Control for Consensus of Multi-Agent Systems with Output Saturation and Directed Topologies
Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Junfeng Wu, Karl H. Johansson
CCC 2019: 38th Chinese Control Conference
paper

Preprint

Distributed Proportional-Integral Optimization Algorithms with Event-triggered Communication
Wen Du, Xinlei Yi, Shengjun Zhang, Jemin George, Tao Yang
Distributed Economic Dispatch over Networks with Markovian Communication Losses
Junfeng Wu, Shengjun Zhang, Tao Yang, Ling Shi, Hong Wang

Selected Honors and Awards

Year Honor Description
2020 Third Place Graduate Student Poster Competition IEEE North Tech SAS
2019 IEEE Outstanding Graduate Student IEEE local event
2012 Second Prize Physics Experiment Competition of Colleges Beijing, China
Year Scholorship Description
2020 College of Engeering Dean Tuition Scholarship For academic and reasearch excellence
2020 Toulouse Graduate School Scholarship For academic and reasearch excellence
2019 College of Engeering Dean Tuition Scholarship For academic and reasearch excellence
2019 Toulouse Graduate School Scholarship For academic and reasearch excellence
2018 College of Engeering Dean Tuition Scholarship For academic and reasearch excellence
2018 Toulouse Graduate School Scholarship For academic and reasearch excellence

Graduated Courses

New York University

University of North Texas

Service

Journal Reviewer

Conference Reviewer

TA Experience

Year Course Instructor
Fall 2020 EENG 5940 Optimization Theory
Dr. Colleen Bailey
Spring 2019 EENG 2620 Signals and Systems
Dr. Tao Yang
Fall 2018 EENG 2620 Signals and Systems
Dr. Tao Yang
Fall 2018 EENG 5940 Advanced Topics in Electrical Engineering: Power System & Optimization
Dr. Tao Yang

Miscellaneous

IEEE North Tech SAS

I was honored to receive the 3rd place in Graduate Student Poster Competition @ IEEE North Tech SAS from
Susan K. (Kathy) Land.

Powerlifting

I am a member and competitor of USAPL 93kg class, this is my very first powerlifting meet in October 2019. Shout out to the support and love from Dr. Bailey, Art, Enzo, Lisha, Stacey and Peggy!

Dr. Yang Earns 2018 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award