Hao Zhou

Hao Zhou is a Research Associate Professor at the Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR), Tsinghua University. His research focuses on developing Generative AI models for discrete symbols such as text, small molecules, and proteins. Previously, he worked as a Research Scientist/Manager at Bytedance AI Lab. Currently, he leads the Generative Symbolic Intelligence group at Tsinghua AIR and co-leads the SIA Lab, a joint laboratory with ByteDance for LLM research.

His research interests span molecular representation learning, generative models for scientific discovery, and applications in drug design and protein engineering. Recent work includes advancements in 3D molecular modeling, protein language models, and non-autoregressive sequence generation. These efforts aim to bridge AI techniques with scientific domains like chemistry and biology.

Recent publications highlight contributions to areas such as auto-encoder-based molecular representation (Mol-AE), multi-scale protein modeling (ESM All-Atom), and structure-based drug design (MolCRAFT). These papers reflect a focus on improving generative models' accuracy and applicability to real-world scientific challenges.

• Best Short Paper of INLG (2022)
• Ranked #1 on WMT EN-DE translation (2021)
• CCF NLPCC Distinguished Young Scientist (2021)
• Best Paper Award of ACL (2021)
• CAAI Doctoral Dissertation Award (2019)

He advises several students, including Qiying Yu, Yuxuan Song, and Danqing Wang, and oversees grants related to AI in drug discovery and molecular modeling. His labs are actively hiring postdocs and research assistants, and he encourages student interns to join collaborative projects.

Key initiatives include the SIA Lab’s work on LLM research and the Generative Symbolic Intelligence group’s exploration of AI-driven scientific breakthroughs. These efforts emphasize interdisciplinary approaches to tackle complex challenges in AI and life sciences.