Assistant Professor
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)

Zhiyao Xie is an Assistant Professor in the ECE Department at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), where he joined in 2022 Fall. His research focuses on electronic design automation (EDA) and AI for chip design. He completed his Ph.D. at Duke University in 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Yiran Chen and Prof. Hai (Helen) Li, following his B.Eng from CityU HK in 2017 with a full scholarship & first-class honours. During his Ph.D. studies, Zhiyao also worked as a research intern at leading IC and EDA companies (e.g., NVIDIA, Arm, Cadence, and Synopsys), where he was fortunate to work with Dr. Haoxing Ren, Dr. Brucek Khailany, Dr. Xiaoqing Xu, Dr. Shidhartha Das, and Prof. Jiang Hu.

Zhiyao has received multiple prestigious awards, including the RGC HK Early Career Award 2023 (7 out of 525), ACM Outstanding Dissertation Award in EDA 2023 (one awardee per year), EDAA Outstanding Dissertation Award 2023, MICRO 2021 Best Paper Award (1 out of 430), ASP-DAC 2023 Best Paper Award, WAIC Yufan Award (Brilliant Star) 2023, ACM SIGDA SRF 2022 Best Research Poster Award, and 4 more best paper nominations. He served on the TPC of ICCAD, DATE, ASPDAC, MLCAD, LAD, and as the Finance Chair of IEEE CEDA Hong Kong.

Award & Honors

• ASP-DAC 2025 Best Paper Nomination, 2025
• Faculty Teaching Excellence Appreciation Award, ECE Department, 2023/24
• ACM/IEEE ISLPED 2024 Best Paper Nomination, 2024 (8 out of 167)
• IEEE LAD 2024 Best Paper Nomination, 2024 (6 out of 80)
• RGC HK Early Career Award, 2023 (7 out of 525 early-career faculties)
• WAIC Yufan ‘‘Brilliant Star’’ Award, 2023 (Top 10 AI researchers under age of 35)
• ACM Outstanding Dissertation Award in EDA, 2023 (1 awardee worldwide per year)
• EDAA Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2023 (4 awardees worldwide per year)
• ASP-DAC 2023 Best Paper Award, 2023 (2 out of 328)
• ASP-DAC 2023 Best Paper Nomination, 2023 (11 out of 328)
• ACM TODAES Distinguished Reviewer, 2022
• ACM SIGDA SRF Best Research Poster Award, 2022
• IEEE/ACM MICRO 2021 Best Paper Award, 2021 (1 out of 430)
• ECE Ph.D. Fellowship, Duke University, 2018
• Dean’s List for all 8 UG Semesters, CityU HK, 2013-2017
• Outstanding Student Prize, CityU HK, 2016
• Full Scholarship for Mainland Undergraduates, CityU HK, 2013-2017

Ph.D. Student Recruitment

• I am looking for motivated students to join my lab as Ph.D. students in HKUST!
  • Please do check the Recruitment for more details.
  • We still have several positions for Spring’25 and Fall’25 enrollments. Do contact us.
  • We welcome students with both CS and EE background, especially students with strong algorithm & programming & deep learning background.
  • Learn more about ML for EDA in Chinese.
  • We support RA or Master only if you intend to continue with a PhD in our team.
• Do not hesitate to email me (eezhiyao@ust.hk) if you are interested!
  • Please do excuse me for not being able to reply every email… Also please do not be discouraged if you do not receive a reply.
  • No need to waste time writing a long email, just drop me your CV with grade.
  • We are always hiring, as long as you are sufficiently excellent :)

Why Joining Us?

• Our research topics are highly cross-disciplinary. You are expected to master deep knowledge on programming, data structure and algorithm, machine learning, EDA, VLSI design, etc. after you graduate. I believe many of these directions are in a very high demand in job market nowadays.

• Our lab has a small number of students with enough research resources. Therefore, you can get hands-on supervision from the advisor during your Ph.D. study. This could be very helpful when starting your research.

• HKUST is undoubtedly a top Asian university in science and engineering. Its world ranking was #34 in QS 2022, and #24 in QS 2022 Engineering & Technology.