Youzhe Song (Isidore)

I am currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Houston, advised by Prof. Jingchao Ni. My research interests center on time-series modeling and the emerging connection between temporal data and AI agents. I am interested in models that can understand evolving systems, reason over long horizons, and support people through reliable and interpretable workflows.

✉️ yanfengz@outlook.com
📍 Houston, Texas, USA

CV 📄  /  SOP 📄  /  💻 Github

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Research

My current research sits at the intersection of time-series analysis and agentic AI. I am exploring how models can learn from changing, multi-source signals and turn that understanding into useful, trustworthy actions.

1. Time-Series Modeling: Studying forecasting, anomaly detection, representation learning, and long-range dependencies in complex temporal data.

2. AI Agents for Temporal Reasoning: Investigating how agents can use memory, tools, and iterative reasoning to analyze evolving systems and assist with data-driven decisions.

3. Trustworthy Learning: Continuing my interest in robust representations and reasoning processes that are understandable to the people who use them.


Education

University of Houston official Interlocking UH mark University of Houston
Ph.D. Student
Research interests: Time Series and AI Agents.
ECNU Logo East China Normal University (Project 985)
Sept 2021 – June 2024
M.S. in Computer Science and Technology
GPA: 3.77/4.00 (Top 5%); Admitted via recommendation (waiver of entrance exam).
Donghua University Logo Donghua University (Project 211)
Sept 2017 – June 2021
B.S. in Computer Science and Technology
GPA: 4.01/5.00; Rank: 2/180; Outstanding Graduate.
Purdue University Northwest Logo Purdue University Northwest
Aug 2019 – Aug 2020
Exchange Student & Research Assistant
GPA: 3.90/4.00; Awarded full CSC scholarship; 1st Place, Notre Dame Data Hackathon.

Publications

CoReFace Project CoReFace: Sample-guided Contrastive Regularization for Deep Face Recognition
Youzhe Song, Feng Wang
Pattern Recognition (PR), 2024
Paper (PDF) / Code

A framework using contrastive learning as a regularizer to learn a more discriminative feature space, increasing the similarity margin for positive/negative pairs by 15% and achieving SOTA performance.

QGFace Project QGFace: Quality-Guided Joint Training For Mixed-Quality Face Recognition
Youzhe Song, Feng Wang
IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), 2024
Paper (PDF) / Code

A unified, single-encoder architecture with a quality-aware strategy to address the real-world issue of training a single model on heterogeneous-quality data, reaching SOTA on mixed-quality benchmarks.


Industry Experience

WWEC Logo Worldwide Educators Conference (WWEC)
June 2024 - Present
Technical Manager
Managed technical associations and developed an automated tool to generate 1000+ custom conference assets, saving an estimated 100+ hours of manual design work.
KeyoneAI Logo Shanghai KeyoneAI Technology Co., Ltd.
May 2023 - Oct 2023
AI Full-Stack Developer Intern
Engineered a full-stack design tool by fine-tuning Stable Diffusion with LoRA and ControlNet to enable intuitive, controllable features like text-to-image and inpainting.
Shanghai Feifan Technology Co., Ltd.
May 2021 - Aug 2021
AI Algorithm Intern
Developed a fashion aesthetics recommendation system leading to a 20% inventory reduction for the client by building a color block classification model and a rule-based engine.

Interests

🎤 Recitation | 🥌 Curling | 🏞️ Outdoor Activities | 🧘 Meditation | 📚 Reading | 🛠️ Exploring New Toolchains

Reading List

Each line in the list is presented with the date, book title, and author. An asterisk (*) at the end indicates a key book.

Books not read on WeChat Read cannot be traced back in time. After experiencing consecutive submission failures in mid-2023, my inner confusion and helplessness erupted, and I began reading a large number of spiritual books, seeking personal life integration. In recent years, I have made breakthroughs in my personal mindset. If we only know too much knowledge, we cannot live this life well. So after overcoming internal friction, I read fewer books.

Undated Books (Mostly from university and before)

  • 魁拔之书
  • The Power, The Magic, Hero (by Rhonda Byrne)
  • 九阳剑圣 (Nine Yang Sword Saint)
  • 超神机械师 (The Legendary Mechanic)
  • 三体 (The Three-Body Problem)
  • 长生帝子 (Longevity Emperor's Son)
  • 修真界败类 (Scum of the Cultivation World)
  • 活法 (Ikigai)
  • 黎明之剑 (Sword of Dawn)
  • 毛泽东选集 (Selected Works of Mao Zedong)
  • 炁体源流 (The Origin of Qi)
  • 深奥的简洁 (Profound Simplicity)
  • 什么是技术 (The Question Concerning Technology)
  • 小逻辑 (The Shorter Logic)
  • 禅海蠡测 (Measuring the Ocean of Zen with a Conch)
  • 爵迹 (L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties)
  • 小时代(I-IV)(Tiny Times)
  • 神印王座 (Throne of Seal)

Reading Journey

2025

  • 2025/4 秘密 (The Secret) (Second time)

2024

  • 2024/10 被讨厌的勇气 (The Courage to Be Disliked)
  • 2024/9 谁说我不可以 (Who Says I Can't)
  • 2024/8 西西弗神话 (The Myth of Sisyphus) by Albert Camus
  • 2024/2 当下的力量 (The Power of Now) by Eckhart Tolle
  • 2024/1 修行明理手册 (Manual for Practice and Understanding Truth)
  • 2024/1 快乐终极指南 (The Ultimate Guide to Happiness)
  • 2024/1 零极限 (Zero Limits)

2023

  • 2023/12 佛道一如道德经修订本 (Buddhism and Taoism as One: Revised Tao Te Ching)
  • 2023/9 不羁的灵魂 (The Untethered Soul)
  • 2023/9 精力管理 (The Power of Full Engagement)
  • 2023/9 圆觉经略说 (Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment Explained) by Nan Huai-Chin
  • 2023/6 无门关 (The Gateless Gate)
  • 2023/6 佛法与义理 (The Dharma and Principles) by Nan Huai-Chin
  • 2023/6 禅海蠡测(语译)(Measuring the Ocean of Zen with a Conch - annotated)
  • 2023/3 维摩诘的花雨漫天 (Vimalakirti's Flower Rain) by Nan Huai-Chin
  • 2023/3 内向者优势 (The Introvert Advantage)

2022

  • 2022/11 大手印浅释 (A Brief Explanation of Mahamudra) by Master Yuanyin
  • 2022/11 定慧初修 (Initial Practice of Samatha-Vipassana)
  • 2022/11 瑜伽师地论·声闻地讲录 (Lectures on the Yogacarabhumi-sastra)
  • 2022/11 人生的起点和终点 (The Start and End of Life)
  • 2022/10 宗镜录略讲 (Brief Lectures on the Zongjing Lu)
  • 2022/10 药师经的济世观 (The World-Saving View of the Medicine Buddha Sutra)
  • 2022/10 答问青壮年参禅者 (Answering Young Chan Practitioners)
  • 2022/10 禅与生命的认知初讲 (Introduction to Zen and the Cognition of Life)
  • 2022/10 静坐修道与长生不老 (Meditation and Immortality)
  • 2022/10 如何修正佛法 (How to Cultivate Buddhist Dharma)
  • 2022/6 大唐兴亡三百年 (Three Hundred Years of the Rise and Fall of the Tang Dynasty)
  • 2022/5 生命进化的跃升 (The Leap of Life's Evolution)
  • 2022/5 中国·政道 (China's Political Way)
  • 2022/2 大奉打更人 (Guardians of the Dafeng)
  • 2022/1 窃明 (Qie Ming)

2021

  • 2021/12 津巴多口述史 (The Zimbardo Oral History)
  • 2021/4 修真四万年 (Forty Millenniums of Cultivation)
  • 2021/4 一句顶一万句 (One Sentence is Worth Ten Thousand)
  • 2021/4 断舍离 (Dan-sha-ri)
  • 2021/3 诡秘之主 (Lord of Mysteries) by 爱潜水的乌贼
  • 2021/3 重口味心理学 (Provocative Psychology)
  • 2021/2 孺子帝 (The Child Emperor)
  • 2021/2 大秦帝国(12册) (The Great Qin Empire series)

2020

  • 2020/12 五万年中国史 (Fifty Thousand Years of Chinese History)
  • 2020/11 书剑恩仇录 (The Book and the Sword) by Jin Yong
  • 2020/11 牛奶可乐经济学 (Milk and Cola Economics)
  • 2020/9 道林格雷的画像 (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
  • 2020/9 让成长带你穿透迷茫 (Let Growth Guide You Through Confusion) by Yu Minhong
  • 2020/9 愿你的青春不负梦想 (May Your Youth Live Up to Your Dreams) by Yu Minhong
  • 2020/8 天行健 (Tian Xing Jian)
  • 2020/8 鹿鼎记 (The Deer and the Cauldron)
  • 2020/8 大明亡国史:崇祯皇帝传 (History of the Ming Dynasty's Fall: Biography of Emperor Chongzhen)
  • 2020/7 堂吉诃德 (Don Quixote)
  • 2020/6 百年孤独 (One Hundred Years of Solitude)
  • 2020/6 亵渎 (Blasphemy)
  • 2020/6 生活是很好玩的 (Life is Fun)
  • 2020/6 世间所有相遇都是久别重逢 (All Encounters in the World Are Reunions After a Long Separation)
  • 2020/6 鼠疫 (The Plague) by Albert Camus
  • 2020/6 海奥华预言 (The Thiaoouba Prophecy)
  • 2020/5 活着 (To Live)
  • 2020/5 罗生门 (Rashomon)
  • 2020/5 局外人 (The Stranger) by Albert Camus
  • 2020/5 别笑,这是大清正史 (Don't Laugh, This is the Official History of the Qing Dynasty)
  • 2020/5 高情商聊天术 (The Art of High EQ Chat)
  • 2020/5 三重门 (Triple Door)
  • 2020/5 过得刚好 (Just Right)
  • 2020/4 雪中悍刀行 (Sword Snow Stride)
  • 2020/2 与神合一 (Communion with God)
  • 2020/2 与神为友 (Friendship with God)
  • 2020/2 与神对话I-III (Conversations with God)
  • 2020/1 娱乐至死 (Amusing Ourselves to Death)
  • 2020/1 非暴力沟通 (Nonviolent Communication)

2019

  • 2019/12 知行合一王阳明 (Unity of Knowledge and Action: Wang Yangming)
  • 2019/9 如何有效阅读一本书 (How to Read a Book Effectively)
  • 2019/9 微习惯 (Mini Habits)
  • 2019/5 干法 (A Passion for Success) by 稻盛和夫

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