HI

_config.yml

@@ -1,64 +1,57 @@
-# Welcome to Jekyll!
-#
-# This config file is meant for settings that affect your entire site, values
-# which you are expected to set up once and rarely need to edit after that.
-# For technical reasons, this file is *NOT* reloaded automatically when you use
-# `jekyll serve`. If you change this file, please restart the server process.
-
 # Site Settings
-title                    : "Lorem ipsum"
-description              : "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. "
-repository               : "RayeRen/acad-homepage.github.io"
-google_scholar_stats_use_cdn : true
+title                    : "Tiantian Zhang"
+description              : "Machine Learning Theory • Optimization "
+# Set this to your own repo in the form USERNAME/REPO (e.g., CrystalZhangTiantian/crystalzhangtiantian.github.io)
+repository               : "YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/YOUR_REPO"
+google_scholar_stats_use_cdn : false
 
-# google analytics
-google_analytics_id      :  # get google_analytics_id from https://analytics.google.com/analytics/
+# google analytics (optional)
+google_analytics_id      :
 
-# SEO Related
-google_site_verification :  # get google_site_verification from https://search.google.com/search-console/about
-bing_site_verification   :  # get bing_site_verification from https://www.bing.com/webmasters/about
-baidu_site_verification  :  # get baidu_site_verification from https://ziyuan.baidu.com/login/index?u=/site/index
+# SEO Related (optional)
+google_site_verification :
+bing_site_verification   :
+baidu_site_verification  :
 
 # Site Author
 author:
-  name             : "Lorem ipsum"
-  avatar           : "images/android-chrome-512x512.png"
-  bio              : "Lorem ipsum College"
-  location         : "Beijing, China"
+  name             : "Tiantian Zhang"
+  avatar           : "images/profile.png"
+  bio              : "Computer Science @ Columbia University"
+  location         : "New York, United States"
   employer         :
-  pubmed           : 
-  googlescholar    : "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YOUR_GOOGLE_SCHOLAR_ID"
-  email            : "Lorem@ipsum.com"
-  researchgate     :  # e.g., "https://www.researchgate.net/profile/yourprofile"
+  pubmed           :
+  googlescholar    : #"https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YOUR_GOOGLE_SCHOLAR_ID"
+  email            : "t.zhang8@columbia.edu"
+  researchgate     :
   uri              :
   bitbucket        :
   codepen          :
   dribbble         :
   flickr           :
   facebook         :
   foursquare       :
-  github           : # e.g., "github username"
+  github           : "YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME"
   google_plus      :
   keybase          :
   instagram        :
-  impactstory      : # e.g., "https://profiles.impactstory.org/u/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"
+  impactstory      :
   lastfm           :
-  linkedin         : # e.g., "linkedin username"
-  dblp             : # e.g., "https://dblp.org/pid/xx/xxxx.html"
-  orcid            : # e.g., "https://orcid.org/xxxx"
+  linkedin         : #"YOUR_LINKEDIN_HANDLE"
+  dblp             : #"https://dblp.org/pid/xx/xxxx.html"
+  orcid            : #"https://orcid.org/xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"
   pinterest        :
   soundcloud       :
-  stackoverflow    : # http://stackoverflow.com/users/123456/username
+  stackoverflow    :
   steam            :
   tumblr           :
-  twitter          : 
+  twitter          :
   vine             :
   weibo            :
   xing             :
   youtube          :
   wikipedia        :
 
-
 # Reading Files
 include:
   - .htaccess
@@ -97,15 +90,13 @@ keep_files:
 encoding: "utf-8"
 markdown_ext: "markdown,mkdown,mkdn,mkd,md"
 
-
 # Conversion
 markdown: kramdown
 highlighter: rouge
 lsi: false
 excerpt_separator: "\n\n"
 incremental: false
 
-
 # Markdown Processing
 kramdown:
   input: GFM
@@ -119,25 +110,21 @@ kramdown:
 
 # Defaults
 defaults:
-  # _pages
   - scope:
       path: ""
       type: pages
     values:
       layout: default
       author_profile: true
 
-
 # Sass/SCSS
 sass:
   sass_dir: _sass
-  style: compressed # http://sass-lang.com/documentation/file.SASS_REFERENCE.html#output_style
-
+  style: compressed
 
 # Outputting
 permalink: /:categories/:title/
-timezone: Asia/Shanghai # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
-
+timezone: America/New_York  # <- set to your local timezone
 
 # Plugins
 plugins:
@@ -146,17 +133,14 @@ plugins:
   - jekyll-gist
   - jekyll-feed
   - jekyll-redirect-from
-# mimic GitHub Pages with --safe
 whitelist:
   - jekyll-paginate
   - jekyll-sitemap
   - jekyll-gist
   - jekyll-feed
   - jemoji
 
-
 # HTML Compression
-# - http://jch.penibelst.de/
 compress_html:
   clippings: all
   ignore:

_pages/about.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 permalink: /
-title: ""
-excerpt: ""
+title: "Tiantian Zhang"
+excerpt: "Computer Science @ Columbia University"
 author_profile: true
 redirect_from: 
   - /about/
@@ -17,42 +17,45 @@ redirect_from:
 
 <span class='anchor' id='about-me'></span>
 
-Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. Suspendisse condimentum, libero vel tempus mattis, risus risus vulputate libero, elementum fermentum mi neque vel nisl. Maecenas facilisis maximus dignissim. Curabitur mattis vulputate dui, tincidunt varius libero luctus eu. Mauris mauris nulla, scelerisque eget massa id, tincidunt congue felis. Sed convallis tempor ipsum rhoncus viverra. Pellentesque nulla orci, accumsan volutpat fringilla vitae, maximus sit amet tortor. Aliquam ultricies odio ut volutpat scelerisque. Donec nisl nisl, porttitor vitae pharetra quis, fringilla sed mi. Fusce pretium dolor ut aliquam consequat. Cras volutpat, tellus accumsan mattis molestie, nisl lacus tempus massa, nec malesuada tortor leo vel quam. Aliquam vel ex consectetur, vehicula leo nec, efficitur eros. Donec convallis non urna quis feugiat.
+Hi! I’m **Tiantian Zhang**, an undergraduate student in Computer Science at Columbia University (Class of 2025).  
+My research interests span **machine learning theory**, **combinatorics optimization**. During my undergrad study, I am fortunate to work with Prof. Yuri Faenza, Prof. Daniel Hsu. Recently, I have been interested in LLM. I have a lot of ongoing thoughts and unaccompolished research idea where you can find on [my blogs](tiantianzz.wordpress.com), and I am always excited to talk about it.
 
-My research interest includes neural machine translation and computer vision. I have published more than 100 papers at the top international AI conferences with total <a href='https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DhtAFkwAAAAJ'>google scholar citations <strong><span id='total_cit'>260000+</span></strong></a> (You can also use google scholar badge <a href='https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DhtAFkwAAAAJ'><img src="https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url={{ url | url_encode }}&logo=Google%20Scholar&labelColor=f6f6f6&color=9cf&style=flat&label=citations"></a>).
 
+---
 
-# 🔥 News
-- *2022.02*: &nbsp;🎉🎉 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
-- *2022.02*: &nbsp;🎉🎉 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
-
-# 📝 Publications 
-
-<div class='paper-box'><div class='paper-box-image'><div><div class="badge">CVPR 2016</div><img src='images/500x300.png' alt="sym" width="100%"></div></div>
-<div class='paper-box-text' markdown="1">
-
-[Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content_cvpr_2016/papers/He_Deep_Residual_Learning_CVPR_2016_paper.pdf)
-
-**Kaiming He**, Xiangyu Zhang, Shaoqing Ren, Jian Sun
-
-[**Project**](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=zh-CN&user=DhtAFkwAAAAJ&citation_for_view=DhtAFkwAAAAJ:ALROH1vI_8AC) <strong><span class='show_paper_citations' data='DhtAFkwAAAAJ:ALROH1vI_8AC'></span></strong>
-- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
-</div>
+# 📝 Publications
+<div class='paper-box'>
+  <div class='paper-box-image'>
+    <div>
+      <div class="badge">Preprint ongoing</div>
+      <img src='images/500x300.png' alt="sym" width="100%">
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <div class='paper-box-text' markdown="1">
+  [*Partial Answer of How Transformers Learn Automata*]([https://arxiv.org/abs/](https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.20395))  
+  **Tiantian Zhang**  
+
+  We study the connection between representation theory, Fourier analysis, and how Transformers simulate finite automata, with applications to modular reasoning.
+  </div>
 </div>
 
-- [Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet](https://github.com), A, B, C, **CVPR 2020**
-
-# 🎖 Honors and Awards
-- *2021.10* Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
-- *2021.09* Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
-
-# 📖 Educations
-- *2019.06 - 2022.04 (now)*, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
-- *2015.09 - 2019.06*, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
+<div class='paper-box'>
+  <div class='paper-box-image'>
+    <div>
+      <div class="badge">In submission into JMLR</div>
+      <img src='images/500x300.png' alt="sym" width="100%">
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <div class='paper-box-text' markdown="1">
+  [*Rank-Induced PL Mirror Descent*](https://tiantianzz.wordpress.com/2025/09/18/rank-induced-pl-mirror-descent/)
+  **Tiantian Zhang**, Daniel Hsu
+
+  We propose a new mirror descent algorithm for the Plackett–Luce model using a Hessian-based preconditioner, achieving improved regret bounds under the rank–distributional equivalence framework.
+  </div>
+</div>
+# 📖 Education
+- **Columbia University** — *B.A. in Computer Science* (Sep 2021 – Dec 2025)  
+  Coursework: Convex Optimization, Statistical Learning, Algorithms, Stochastic Models.  
+  Honors: Dean’s List, Distinguished New Student Scholarship.
 
-# 💬 Invited Talks
-- *2021.06*, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet. 
-- *2021.03*, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus ornare aliquet ipsum, ac tempus justo dapibus sit amet.  \| [\[video\]](https://github.com/)
 
-# 💻 Internships
-- *2019.05 - 2020.02*, [Lorem](https://github.com/), China.