Biography

Dr. Xin-Ya Zhang obtained her B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from Tongji University in 2019 and 2024, respectively. During her Ph.D., she conducted a one-year visiting research at University College London. In January 2025, she has joined the Center for Interdisciplinary Science at Westlake University as a postdoc. Her research interests center on complex systems and artificial intelligence. She has published papers as the first author in top journals such as Nature Communications, Physical Review Letters, Communications Physics and Physical Review Research. She has also co-authored papers presented at top AI conferences, including NeurIPS (Spotlight) and AAAI (Oral). Her research has selected into “PRL Collection of the Year 2024” (one of the nine selected papers completed by Chinese institutions). At present, her research focuses on frontier explorations in the intersection of physics and artificial intelligence.

Representative Publications (*Corresponding author)

1. X.-Y. Zhang*, S. Bobadilla-Suarez, X. Luo, M. Lemonari, S. L. Brincat, M. Siegel, E. K. Miller, B. C. Love*. Adaptive stretching of representations across brain regions and deep learning model layers. Nature Communications, in press.

2. X.-Y. Zhang, X. Ru, Z. Liu, J. M. Moore, G. Yan. Coarse-graining complex networks by optimizing mutual information estimates of random walks. Journal of Physics: Complexity, in press.

3. X.-Y. Zhang*, Y. Yao, Z. Han, G. Yan. Delayed threshold and spatial diffusion in k-core percolation induced by long-range connectivity. Communications Physics, 2025.

4. X.-Y. Zhang*, G. Yan, J. M. Moore*. Organization of a neuron-resolution central brain network: topology, geometry, and anatomy. Journal of Complex Networks, 2025.

5. X.-Y. Zhang, J. M. Moore, X. Ru, G. Yan. Geometric scaling law in real neuronal networks. Physical Review Letters, 2024 (Editors' Suggestion & Featured in Physics).

6. X.-Y. Zhang, J. Sun, G. Yan. Why temporal networks are more controllable: Link weight variation offers superiority. Physical Review Research, 2021, 3 (3): L032045.