Tong Zhang is a Professor in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), part of the Grainger College of Engineering. He previously held positions at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Rutgers University, and industry roles at IBM, Yahoo, Google, Baidu, and Tencent. His research focuses on machine learning algorithms, statistical methods for big data, and their applications in areas like reinforcement learning, generative AI, and optimization. Education: PhD in Computer Science (Stanford University, 1999), MS in Computer Science (Stanford University, 1996), BA in Mathematics and Computer Science (Cornell University, 1994). Research Interests: Machine learning theory, large language models, reinforcement learning, adversarial attacks, optimization algorithms, and ethical AI. His work emphasizes robustness, generalization, and scalable methods for complex systems. Awards: ASA Fellow, IEEE Fellow, IMS Fellow, and recipient of multiple top-tier conference awards (e.g., NAACL 2024 Outstanding Papers). Labs/Teams: Leads a research group at UIUC with active collaborations in areas like generative AI and embodied agents. Supervised over 20 PhD students and postdocs, many now in academia and industry leadership roles.









