Zheng Guo
email: zhgguo@umich.edu
I am a Schmidt AI in Science Fellow at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, hosted by the Michigan Institute for Data & AI in Society (MIDAS). I work with Professor Xinyu Wang, Professor Alex Gorodetsky, and Professor Brian Kiedrowski. I earned my Ph.D. from the University of California San Diego under the supervision of Professor Nadia Polikarpova, and my bachelor’s degree in software engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
My research focuses on accelerating computational science — building tools that let scientists express, discover, and optimize the programs behind their experiments. As part of the broader AI for science effort, I combine program synthesis, program optimization, and deep learning to automate the tedious and error-prone parts of scientific software, so researchers can move from idea to result faster and with more confidence.
Research interests: program synthesis, program optimization, tensor network methods, kernel optimization, AI for science
Projects
active
Tensor Network Methods for Computational Science
Tensor networks compress high-dimensional data in computational science, but their power hinges on choosing a good structure. I develop methods that automatically search for compact, accurate tensor structures, which scales scientific simulations such as radiation transport and neutron diffusion far beyond prior work.
Relevant publications: JCP 2026; arXiv 2025
Scaling Up Program Synthesis
Program synthesis lets scientists say what to compute and leave the how to the machine, but it must scale to be useful. I make search practical with compact representations of enormous, entangled program spaces and precomputed abstract semantics that prune wrong programs fast.
Type-Directed Program Synthesis for APIs
Composing functions across large libraries and web APIs is hard. I synthesize such code from type signatures by casting it as proof search, using type-guided abstraction refinement to search soundly and efficiently across Haskell libraries (Hoogle+) and RESTful APIs. Ongoing work extends type-directed synthesis to scientific workflow synthesis, integration with LLMs, and automated proof generation for software verification.
Relevant publications: PLDI 2022; OOPSLA 2020; POPL 2019
Publications
Talks
- APIphany: Type-Directed Program Synthesis for RESTful APIs (PLDI'22, San Diego, USA)
- Hoogle+: Program Synthesis by Type-Guided Abstraction Refinement (POPL'20, New Orleans, USA)
Teaching
- EECS 498: Software Engineering (undergrad), co-instructor @ WI'26
- AI for Scientists and Engineers Summer Academy, instructor @ 2025, 2026
- CSE 130: Programming Language (undergrad), teaching assistant @ SP'20, SP'21, FA'21, SP'23
- CSE 291: Program Synthesis (graduate), teaching assistant @ WI'21
- CSE 231: Advanced Compilers (graduate), teaching assistant @ WI'19
- COGS 18: Introduction to Python (undergrad), teaching assistant @ Summer'19
- CSE 230: Programming Languages (graduate), teaching assistant @ FA'18
Service
- 2022 Artifact Evaluation Committee of POPL, PLDI
- 2021 Artifact Evaluation Committee of ICFP, PLDI, CAV
- 2020 Artifact Evaluation Committee of ICFP, ECOOP