CV
General Information
| Name | Dake Zhang |
| [first_name].[last_name]@uwaterloo.ca | |
| Website | https://zhangdake.tech/ |
| Address | DC 3301, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 |
| Summary | I design and evaluate retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) systems and LLMs from the user’s perspective, building datasets, metrics, and experiments that reflect real human alignment and utility. |
| Languages | Chinese (native), English (fluent) |
Education
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2022 - 2026 PhD Student in Computer Science
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada - Supervisor: Prof. Mark D. Smucker
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2020 - 2022 Master of Mathematics in Computer Science
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada - Supervisor: Prof. Mark D. Smucker
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2016-2020 Bachelor of Engineering in Software Engineering
Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China - Supervisor: Prof. Bo Han
Professional Experience
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May–Aug 2025 Applied Scientist Intern
Amazon, Vancouver, BC, Canada - Amazon Store - Everyday Essential Product Science Team
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Apr–Aug 2024 Applied Scientist Intern
Microsoft, Remote - Bing Whole Page Optimization (WPO) Team
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Jun-Aug 2023 Research Scientist Intern
Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab, Montreal, QC, Canada - Accelerated Neural Technology (ANT) Team
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May-Sep 2020 Machine Learning Engineer Intern
ByteDance, Beijing, China - TikTok Recommender System Team
Academic Experience
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2020 - Now Information Retrieval Group & Data Systems Group
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada - Supervisor: Prof. Mark D. Smucker
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2018-2020 -
2019 EdTeKLA Research Group
University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada - Supervisor: Prof. Carrie Demmans Epp
Teaching Experience
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2021 - Now CS 486/686: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada - Teaching Assistant
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2023 CS 138: Introduction to Data Abstraction and Implementation
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada - Teaching Assistant
Academic Service
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Workshop Organizer
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Reviewer
- AAAI 2026
- CIKM 2024
- ECIR 2026
- ICTIR 2023
- SIGIR 2025
- SIGIR-AP 2025
- WSDM 2026
- WWW 2026
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Graduate Mentor
- Sarah Wilson (CRA UR2PhD Program), 2024
- Abirami Karthikeyan (CRA UR2PhD Program), 2024
- Anna Li (CRA UR2PhD Program), 2023
- Diana Brebeanu (CRA UR2PhD Program), 2023
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Committee Roles
- Graduate Student Representative, School Advisory Committee on Appointments, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, 2025
Honors and Awards
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2023 - First Prize (2k CAD), 2023 Canadian #AI Misinformation Hackathon
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2022 - Student Travel Grant (350 EUR), SIGIR 2022
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2021 - Globalink Graduate Fellowship (15k CAD), Mitacs
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2020 - Outstanding Graduate, Wuhan University
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2019 - Globalink Research Internship (5.7k CAD), China Scholarship Council & Mitacs
- Outstanding Student, Wuhan University
- Scholarship for Exemplary Student (1k CNY), Wuhan University
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2018 - Outstanding Student, Wuhan University
- Scholarship for Outstanding Student (2k CNY), Wuhan University
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2017 - Outstanding Student, Wuhan University
- Scholarship for Exemplary Student (1k CNY), Wuhan University