Cheng Zhang

Photo of me enjoying some Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets
Photo of me enjoying some Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets (not sponsored)

Research

I am a final year Ph.D. student at Boston University POPV Group working with Professor Marco Gaboardi.

My works range over a wide spectrum of theoretical and real-world problems in the field of Kleene Algebra.

  • On the theoretical side, I am interested in producing simple and elegant proofs of complicated results like completeness and decidablity. Many of my theoretical work is built upon beautiful ideas from universal algebra, coalgebra, and category theory.
  • On the practical side, I am interested in all kinds of applications of Kleene Algebra in various field of computer science, including network, distributed system, probabilistic computing, etc. Currently, most of my practical work is in the field program logics and verifications. However, I am eager to use the power of Kleene Algebra to tackle real-world problems in other fields of Computer Science.

You can find out more about my research and experiences in my CV and research statement

Publications and Preprints

  • Kleene algebra with commutativity conditions is undecidable
    with Arthur Azevedo de Amorim, Marco Gaboardi
    [hal] (Preprint)
  • Domain Reasoning In TopKAT
    with Arthur Azevedo de Amorim, Marco Gaboardi
    [arxiv] [doi] (ICALP2024)
  • A Dependently Typed Language with Dynamic Equality
    with Mark Lemay, Qiancheng Fu, William Blair, Hongwei Xi
    [doi] (TyDe2023)
  • On Incorrectness Logic and Kleene Algebra With Top and Tests
    with Arthur Azevedo de Amorim, Marco Gaboardi
    [arxiv] [doi (contains errors)] (POPL2022)
  • Developing a Dependently Typed Language with Runtime Proof Search (Extended Abstract)
    with Mark Lemay, William Blair
    [ICFP website] (TyDe2020)
  • Kings in Generalized Tournaments
    Cheng Zhang
    [archive] (Honor Thesis)
  • Lexos 2017: Building Reliable Software in Python
    with Weiqi Feng, Emma Steffens, Alvaro de Landaluce, Scott Kleinman, Mark D. LeBlanc
    [doi] (CCSC2018)

Hobbies

I enjoy cooking, food, coffee, gardening with my wife, and hang out with my pet rabbits. I sometimes read about coffee and old Chinese poetry; I kept a tiny blog of some poetries and lyrics I translated and wrote. These translations are generally terrible, but I am trying to get better.

Contact

Teaching

  • 2020 Fall, CS 230: Principle of Programming Language, with Professor Marco Gaboardi and Lecture Abbas Attarwala
  • 2020 Summer, CS 111: Introduction to Computer Science 1, with Lecture John Magee
  • 2020 Summer, CS 112: Introduction to Computer Science 2, with Lecturer Christine Papadakis-Kanaris
  • 2020 Spring, CS 235: Algebraic Algorithm, with Professor Leonid Levin
  • 2019 Fall, CS 132: Geometric Algorithm, with Lecture Abbas Attarwala
  • 2019 Spring, CS 230: Principle of Programming Language, with Professor Wayne Snyder

Miscellaneous

My first name (Cheng) is pronounced as:

My last name (Zhang) as is pronounced as:

My pronoun is he/him or gender-neutral they/them. But I personally will not be offended if mis-gendered or have my name mis-pronounced.