I'm a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine, mentored by John Lowengrub. I obtained my Ph.D. at UC San Diego, advised by Li-Tien Cheng, co-advised by Bo Li.
I will join Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) as an Assistant Professor in August 2025.
Here's my CV.
Email: zirui.zhang@uci.edu
My research interests lie in scientific machine learning and numerical analysis, with applications in biophysics and cancer research.
Ph.D. in Mathematics
Sept 2017 - June 2022
University of California, San Diego
Advised by Li-Tien Cheng, co-advised by Bo Li
M.Sc. in Computational Science
Sept 2017 - May 2019
University of California, San Diego
Research Internship Program
Sept 2021 - Dec 2021
École Polytechnique
Supervised by Prof. Sébastien Michelin
Bachelor of Engineering
Sept 2012 - June 2016
University of Hong Kong
Exchange student
Sept 2014 - June 2015
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Keynote speaker for the session Computational Models and Methods for Predicting Cancer Progression and Treatment Response at WCCM, 2024
UCI Systems Biology Opportunity Award (with Rany Tith and Song Zhu), 2024
Rising Star speaker at UCI Center for Complex Biological Systems Retreat, 2024
The Data Science Conference 2023 travel grant (NSF), 2023
Powell Dissertation Award (UCSD), 2022
Gold Medal of BirdCLEF 2021 – Birdcall Identification (Kaggle), 2021
James B. Ax Fellowship (UCSD), 2019
Emerging Engineering Award (Institute of Civil Engineers), 2017
Soong Ching Ling Scholarship (Soong Ching Ling Foundation), 2012 - 2016
BiLO: Bilevel Local Operator Learning for PDE inverse problems
Ray Zirui Zhang, Xiaohui Xie, John Lowengrub.
Personalized Predictions of Glioblastoma Infiltration: Mathematical Models, Physics-Informed Neural Networks and Multimodal Scans.
Ray Zirui Zhang, Ivan Ezhov, Michal Balcerak, Andy Zhu, Benedikt Wiestler, Bjoern Menze, John Lowengrub.
Medical Image Analysis, 2024. [Journal] [arXiv] [code] [slide]
Individualizing Glioma Radiotherapy Planning by Optimization of a Data and Physics Informed Discrete Loss.
Michal Balcerak, Ivan Ezhov, Petr Karnakov, Sergey Litvinov, Petros Koumoutsakos, Jonas Weidner, Ray Zirui Zhang, John S Lowengrub, Bene Wiestler, Bjoern Menze.
A Compact Coupling Interface Method with Second-Order Gradient Approximation for Elliptic Interface Problems.
Ray Zirui Zhang, Li-Tien Cheng.
Journal of Scientific Computing, 2024. [Journal] [arXiv] [Code]
Binary Level Set method for Variational Implicit Solvation Model.
Ray Zirui Zhang, Li-Tien Cheng.
SIAM Journal of Scientific Computing, 2023. [Journal] [arXiv] [Code] [Slide]
Explicit-Solute Implicit-Solvent Molecular Simulation with Binary Level-Set, Adaptive-Mobility, and GPU.
Shuang Liu, Zirui Zhang, Li-Tien Cheng, Bo Li.
Journal of Computational Physics, 2023. [Journal] [arXiv]
Coupling Monte Carlo, Variational Implicit Solvation, and Binary Level-Set for Simulations of Biomolecular Binding.
Zirui Zhang, Clarisse Gravina Ricci, Chao Fan, Li-Tien Cheng, Bo Li, J.Andrew McCammon.
Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 2021. [Journal]
Runout Scaling and Deposit Morphology of Rapid Mudflows.
Lu Jing, Fiona C. Y. Kwok, Andy Y. F. Leung, Zirui Zhang, Lutao Dai.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface. [Journal]
School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Seminar, Arizona State University (2025)
The Mathematics of Data, Dynamics, and Life Sciences (MDDLS) Conference, UCI (2025)
Computational and Applied Mathematics Colloquium, Penn State (2024)
16th World Congress on Computational Mechanics and 4th Pan American Congress on Computational Mechanics, Vancouver, Canada (2024)
Joint Annual Meeting of the Korean Society for Mathematical Biology and the Society for Mathematical Biology, Seoul, Korea (2024)
SIAM conference on Life Science (2024)
2024 UCI Systems Biology Retreat (2024)
SIAM Southern California Applied Mathematics Symposium, UCSD (2024)
Statistical and Machine Learning Applications in Biomedical Sciences, UCI (2024)
Center for Computational Mathematics Seminar, UCSD (2024)
UCI Systems Biology Retreat (2024)
The International Conference on New Trends in Computational and Data Sciences, Caltech (2024)
Predictive Modeling in Biology and Medicine Conference, UCR (2024)
Long Feng Science Forum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (2023)
17th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics, Albuquerque, New Mexico (2023)
The Data Science Conference, Data Institute at the University of San Francisco (2023)
SIAM Southern California Applied Mathematics Symposium, UCI (2023)
Applied Mathematics Seminar, UCI (2023)
SIAM Southern California Applied Mathematics Symposium, UCI (2023)
New Trends in Computational and Data Sciences, Caltech (2022)
5th Annual Meeting of the SIAM Texas-Louisiana Section, U Houston (2022)
SIAM Southern California Applied Mathematics Symposium, Harvey Mudd College (2022)
New Trends in Scientific Computing, IPAM, UCLA (2022)
SIAM Conference on Applied and Computational Discrete Algorithms (2021)
SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (2021)
Center For Computational Mathematics Seminar, UCSD (2020)
Mentor of 2024 Math ExpLR: Summer Research Program for High School Students
Organizer of Minisymposium Image-Guided Mathematical Modeling in Clinical and Pre-Clinical Oncology at SMB Annual Meeting 2024
Guest Lecturer of UCI Cancer Systems Biology Short Course 2024
Reviewer of NeurIPS 2024
Member of Organizing Committee of SOCAMS 2023
Volunteer tutor at Math Open House, helping bridge the math knowledge gap for incoming undergraduate students