HUST Undergraduate Natural Science Fund 2026
Trustworthy Enhancement for Complex Reasoning
Project Lead · CNY 50,000 (approx. US$7,450)
Xinglang Zhang 
Undergraduate Student, Cyber Science and Engineering
Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) · Qiming Experimental Class
normanspark@hust.edu.cn · zxinglang594@gmail.com
I am actively looking for 27 Spring Research Intern Opportunities and 28 Fall PhD Positions
About
Xinglang Zhang is a sophomore undergraduate majoring in Cyber Science and Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), advised by Professor Zikai Song at the Media Lab. His research focuses on neural-symbolic AI, computational social science and agent systems.
Xinglang is naturally proactive and collaborative—he enjoys initiating ideas, working with others, and turning abstract concepts into practical work. Beyond research, he values communication, responsibility, and long-term growth.
Still early in his academic journey, Xinglang is highly motivated, open to feedback, and always excited by meaningful challenges.
Research Interests
Xinglang Zhang's research interests include Neural-Symbolic AI, LLM Agents, and Computational Social Science.
News
- Sept 2026: Received the National Scholarship for the second consecutive year (Top 0.3% nationwide) and the Triple-A ("Sanhao") Student Scholarship (Top 5.5%).
- Aug 2026: Our survey "Social Intelligence Modeling: A Comprehensive Survey from Social Perception to Social Simulation" is now available as a preprint on ResearchGate.
- Aug 2026: EarthVerse is now available online—please check it out on the project page.
- Jul 2026: Our extended paper "Semiotic Logical Hexagon Theory for LLM Logical Reasoning" is now available on arXiv.
- Jul 2026: I will attend ACL 2026 in San Diego from July 1 to July 7. See you in San Diego! Feel free to have a coffee chat with me.
- May 2026: 🎉 Our paper "Semantic-Aware Logical Reasoning via a Semiotic Framework" has been selected as an oral presentation
at ACL 2026! - Apr 2026: 🎉 Two papers were accepted to ACL 2026 Main Conference. Congratulations to Yunyao and our team!
- Mar 2026: ACL meta scores are out—3.5 and 4. Looking forward to good news ahead!
- Mar 2026: 🎉 Congratulations to Xinglang for receiving the Jin Yugang Lan-Ying Scholarship (5000 RMB)
, the only recipient from the School of Cyber Science and Engineering! - Mar 2026: Secured a summer internship at UIUC in 2026—looking forward to the research experience there!
- Jan 2026: Preprint for "Logical Phase Transitions" available on arXiv.
- Sept 2025: LogicAgent preprint released on arXiv.
- Sept 2025: Received the National Scholarship (Top 3.2%) .
Publications
Selected publications by Xinglang Zhang.
Logical Phase Transitions: Understanding Collapse in LLM Logical Reasoning Accepted to ACL 2026
ACL 2026 Main Conference, 2026. Also on arXiv:2601.02902
Identifies critical logical complexity thresholds in LLMs and proposes a model-agnostic Logical Complexity Metric (LoCM) alongside a neuro-symbolic curriculum tuning framework.
Semantic-Aware Logical Reasoning via a Semiotic Framework ACL 2026 Oral
ACL 2026 Main Conference (Oral), 2026. Also on arXiv:2509.24765
Introduces LogicAgent, a multi-perspective reasoning framework grounded in semiotics, and RepublicQA, a philosophy-inspired benchmark.
Too Good to Be Real? Diagnosing and Reducing the Gap Between AI Preference and Real User Engagement Under Review
Under review, 2026. Also on arXiv:2609.18282
Proposed an ontology-based preference decomposition framework and uncovered a synthetic-real preference gap: LLMs overvalue explicit reasoning, while real platform users reward affective and expressive salience.
Semiotic Logical Hexagon Theory for LLM Logical Reasoning arXiv 2026
arXiv preprint, 2026. Extended from our ACL 2026 Oral paper.
Introduces HexLogicAgent and a formal logical hexagon theory that organizes complete semantic opposition before deduction, improving the reliability of LLM logical reasoning across multiple models and benchmarks.
Social Intelligence Modeling: A Comprehensive Survey from Social Perception to Social Simulation Preprint 2026
Preprint, 2026.
Introduces Social Intelligence Modeling as a unified perspective spanning social perception, understanding, generation, and simulation.
IntervenSim: Intervention-Aware Social Network Simulation for Opinion Dynamics
arXiv preprint, 2026. Also on arXiv:2604.06600
Introduces an intervention-aware closed-loop simulation framework that jointly models source-side interventions and crowd feedback to better capture evolving opinion dynamics in online social networks.
EarthVerse: Benchmarking Scientific Agents Across Dynamic Earth Systems and Natural Hazards Preprint 2026
Preprint, 2026.
Benchmarks scientific agents on dynamic Earth systems and natural-hazard scenarios.
Selected Funded Projects
College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (University Level)
LLM Logical Reasoning through Philosophical Paradigms
Project Lead · CNY 4,000 (approx. US$600)
College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (Hubei Provincial Level)
Trustworthy Enhancement of LLMs via a Neuro-Symbolic Framework
Project Lead · CNY 20,000 (approx. US$2,980)
Service
Reviewer, ACL ARR January
2026
Reviewer, ACL ARR May
2026
Reviewer, ACL ARR August
2026
Academic Activities
ACL 2026 · Poster Presenter & Oral Presenter
July 1–8, 2026 · San Diego
X-AGI Conference · Rising Star Poster Presenter
October 17–18, 2026
Honors & Awards
- Jin Yugang Lan-Ying Scholarship (School-level, only recipient from School of Cyber Science and Engineering), 2025 – 2026
- National Scholarship (Top 0.3% nationwide), 2025 – 2026
- Triple-A ("Sanhao") Student Scholarship (Top 5.5%), 2025 – 2026
- National Scholarship (Top 0.3% nationwide), 2024 – 2025
- Triple-A ("Sanhao") Student Scholarship (Top 5.5%), 2024 – 2025
- Outstanding Undergraduate Student, Qiming College (top 1.85% in HUST), 2025 – 2027
- Outstanding Communist Youth League Member (Top 4.1%), 2024 – 2025
- Academic Excellence Scholarship & Self-improvement Scholarship, 2024 – 2025
- Outstanding Camper, Peking University Outstanding High School Students Summer Camp, August 2023
Leadership Experience
Leader of English Association, Liuyang No.1 High School
September 2022 - September 2023
Class Representative, Qiming Experimental Class
September 2024 - Present
Head of Organization Department, School of Cyber Science and Engineering
September 2025 - Present
Technical Skills
Technical
PyTorch, Transformers, LoRA, SFT, RLHF, vLLM, Deep Learning
Languages
- English: Proficient; TOEFL 5.5/6 (W6, R6, L5.5, S5); CET-4: 609; CET-6: 611
- Chinese: Native
- Japanese: Beginner; enjoys Japanese animation
Social Media
Miscellaneous
Music
I'm a huge fan of Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey, and I enjoy collecting their vinyl albums.
Favorite Character
Hachi from Chiikawa. He's cute, positive, hardworking, and kind to everyone around him.
Sport
Ultimate Frisbee.
Photography
I love taking photos for my friends, especially atmospheric portrait photography.
