CV
Contact Information
| Name | Zifan Lyu |
| ziflyu@student.ethz.ch | |
| Website | https://zifanlyu.github.io |
Education
-
2026 - present Zurich, Switzerland
PhD
ETH Zurich
Computer Science
- Research on efficient evaluation of large language models (LLMs).
- First-author ICML 2026 paper in the first year.
- Two further projects to be submitted in early 2027.
-
2021 - 2025 Zurich, Switzerland
MSc
ETH Zurich
Statistics
- Overall grade 5.85/6.00, with distinction; over 150 ECTS completed (90 required).
- Coursework: Guarantees for Machine Learning, Probabilistic Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning in Scientific Computing, Probability Theory, Fundamentals of Mathematical Statistics, Functional Analysis I–II, Numerical Solution of Stochastic Ordinary Differential Equations.
-
2018 - 2021 London, United Kingdom
BSc
London School of Economics (LSE)
Mathematics, Statistics and Business
- First Class Honours.
- Coursework: Stochastic Processes, Algorithms and Programming.
Publications
-
2026 Cutting LLM Evaluation Costs with SySRs: A Bandit Algorithm that Provably Exploits Model Similarity
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2026)
Successive Rejects with paired comparisons: hyperparameter-free, guarantees improve with model similarity; lower average error rate than all baselines on 15 benchmarks, and lower worst-case budget to identify the best model.
-
2026 Checkable NTK Positivity and Finite-Width Gradient Descent for Scalar- and Vector-Valued PINNs with Strong-Form, Weak-Form, and Nonlocal Linear Constraints
Under review at the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2027)
Research Experience
-
2025 - 2025 Zurich, Switzerland
Research Assistant
ETH Zurich
- Developed SySRs, a hyperparameter-free bandit algorithm that finds the best LLM with fewer evaluations by exploiting similarity between models (ICML 2026).
-
2024 - 2024 Zurich, Switzerland
Research on physics-informed neural networks (MSc)
ETH Zurich
- Combining computer vision with physics-informed neural networks to estimate the underlying fluid dynamics (manuscript in preparation).
- Checkable positive-definiteness criteria for the limiting neural tangent kernel of PINNs with linear constraints, and high-probability guarantees for finite-width gradient descent (arXiv:2610.04357).
Other Experience
-
2023 - 2023 Zurich, Switzerland
Teaching Assistant, Probability Theory (401-3601-00L)
ETH Zurich
- Weekly exercise sessions and grading for Prof. Igor Kortchemski’s graduate course.
-
2019 - 2020 London, United Kingdom
Head of Diversity and Inclusion
LSESU Business & Investment Group
- LSE’s largest student society: organised diversity and inclusion events on campus and liaised with employers alongside its Women’s Advancement Division.
-
2019 - 2020 London, United Kingdom
Peer Supporter
London School of Economics (LSE)
- Confidential peer support for students facing academic stress, peer pressure and interpersonal difficulties; trained in active listening, crisis intervention and boundary-setting under professional supervision.
Skills and Languages
Programming: Python, R, MATLAB, C++
Tools: PyTorch, Git, Slurm (HPC)
Languages: English and Mandarin (bilingual), German (B1), Japanese (elementary)