2025 Summary

Recently, I’ve noticed myself changing quite a bit after every semester, though I can’t quite figure out why. To understand better, I need to start writing down what’s been happening in my life.

Learning English #

To start with, my English proficiency is limited due to a lack of consistent study over the years. Nevertheless, as a student who wants to be recommended for admission, I must pass CET6. I’ve taken the exams a lot of times but failed. The score for my latest attempt has not been released yet, so I’m not sure if I’ll pass this time. In the mean time, I’m also preparing for the IELTS, hoping for a better outcome.

ACM #

This year, I have become the Captain of the ACM team at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). To help students improve their coding skills, I am working with the former captain, Zhi Yang, to host the ICPC Wuhan Invitational Contest. Hosting the ICPC Wuhan Invitational has been exhausting but truly unforgettable. It was my first time standing before an audience from all over China. Additionally, I organized the team training and slot allocation. People usually clash over these decisions, but this time, I tried to make the process more transparent and it really worked. Besides, I won another Au medal in ICPC Regional in Chengdu! Even though I haven’t practiced for a long time, I’m thrilled to secure another Gold.

Research #

In Shuhao Zhang’s Lab #

In April 2025, I joined Prof. Shuhao Zhang’s lab to begin my research journey in database systems. It was there that I met my good friend, Xinyan Lei. We have been collaborating closely on vector databases, a challenging but fascinating field. Xinyan has been incredibly helpful, teaching me how to streamline my work using Github, SSH and AI tools like gemini-cli and claudecode. To further immerse myself in this environment, I also join Unique Lab, where Xinyan serves as the team lead. I’ve met so many talented people here and learned a great deal. My hard work eventually led to a SIGMOD paper titled ‘CandorBench’, where I served as the fifth author. Currently, I’m also working on an ongoing project that hasn’t been published yet.

In Huanchen Zhang’s Lab #

Towards the end of 2025, I joined Prof. Huanchen Zhang’s lab, where I began focusing on data formats for vector databases. We observed that as AI continues to evolve, traditional vector databases may become overly cumbersome for individual users, making lightweight data formats increasingly critical. My research led me to explore using WASM for vector search. I discovered that by leveraging quantization and DiskANN-like algorithms, we can achieve efficient on-device performance. I’ve shared some of these findings in my post:WASM for On-Device ANNS. Currently, I am working on an exciting new topic that I expect to publish soon.

Conclusion #

I know my English still has a long way to go, but I believe these reflections are a good start. I’m crossing my fingers for my upcoming papers and hope to achieve even more in 2026.