Yuanzhao Zhang
Assistant Professor of Physics
PhD, Northwestern University, 2020
- Office Location
- 351 Bausch & Lomb Hall
- Web Address
- Website
Biography
Yuanzhao received his PhD from Northwestern University in 2020. He was a Schmidt Science Fellow at Cornell University and an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute before joining the University of Rochester in 2026 as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. His research has been supported by Schmidt Sciences, Simons Foundation, and National Science Foundation. His honors include the APS Dissertation Award in Statistical and Nonlinear Physics and the Complex Systems Society Emerging Researcher Award.
Research Overview
Yuanzhao studies the physics of complex systems and artificial intelligence. His research asks how collective dynamics emerge from local interactions and how machine-learning models generalize beyond their training data. His group combines ideas and methods from nonlinear dynamics, network science, statistical physics, and machine learning to investigate these questions. Recent areas of focus include synchronization in coupled oscillators, higher-order interactions, high-dimensional basin geometry, time-series foundation models, and reservoir computing.
Research Interests
- Nonlinear Dynamics; Networks; Complex Systems; Physics of AI; Machine Learning for Dynamical Systems