Summary
Nan Zhang is a PhD candidate and research-focused software engineer with 11 years of experience bridging applied ML research and production software. Based at Penn State, Nan researches LLM compression, retrieval-augmented generation, and NLP while teaching and mentoring students, and has interned on AI research teams at Salesforce and NEC Labs. Their background includes building full-stack enterprise applications and automated testing systems at BNP Paribas and Fidelity, giving them solid systems and engineering rigor alongside research depth. Known for a perpetual growth mindset ("永远在路上"), Nan combines hands-on model compression work with practical deployment considerations, making them effective at moving models from prototype to usable tools.
11 years of coding experience