Zixiang Xu（徐子翔）

Zixiang Xu（徐子翔）

CS Ph.D. Student at USC

I am a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Southern California, advised by Prof. Yue Zhao in the FORTIS Lab. My research focuses on Agent Systems, Trustworthy AI, and AI for Science & Society.

Previously at WeChat AI, Alibaba, MBZUAI, the MINE Lab at Notre Dame, MIT CTL, Microsoft, and Sichuan University.

News

I’m joining USC in Fall 2026 to start my CS Ph.D. study! Fight On!

I’m joining WeChat AI as a Research Intern!

Every grand ambition starts with a humble beginning.

每一个远大的理想都有个微不足道的开始。

Selected Work

Findings of EMNLP 2026 SocialSim @ COLM 2025 · Spotlight

SocialMaze: A Benchmark for Evaluating and Enhancing Social Reasoning in Large Language Models in Complex Social Environments

Zixiang Xu, Yanbo Wang, Yue Huang, Haomin Zhuang, Yujun Zhou, Jiayi Ye, et al.

Project Page Paper arXiv Code Data
ACL 2025

Cross-Lingual Pitfalls: Automatic Probing Cross-Lingual Weakness of Multilingual Large Language Models

Zixiang Xu*, Yanbo Wang*, Yue Huang*, Xiuying Chen, Jieyu Zhao, Meng Jiang, Xiangliang Zhang (* Equal contribution)

Project Page Paper Code
NeurIPS 2025

Adaptive Distraction: Probing LLM Contextual Robustness with Automated Tree Search

Yanbo Wang*, Zixiang Xu*, Yue Huang*, Chujie Gao, Siyuan Wu, Jiayi Ye, et al. (* Equal contribution)

Paper Code
NeurIPS 2025

DyFlow: Dynamic Workflow Framework for Agentic Reasoning

Yanbo Wang, Zixiang Xu, Yue Huang, Xiangqi Wang, Zirui Song, Lang Gao, Chenxi Wang, et al.

Paper Code
Preprint Under review

Inside the Unfair Judge: A Mechanistic Interpretability Account of LLM-as-Judge Bias

Zixiang Xu, Sixian Li, Huaxing Liu, Xiang Wang, Shuai Li, Zirui Song, Xiuying Chen

Project Page Paper
Preprint 2026

GTA: Graph Theory Agent and Benchmark for Algorithmic Graph Reasoning with LLMs

Zixiang Xu, Yanbo Wang, Chenxi Wang, Lang Gao, Zirui Song, Yue Huang, Zhaorun Chen, Xiangliang Zhang, Xiuying Chen

Paper Code
All publications

Honors and Awards

USC Annenberg Fellowship

A competitive fellowship top-off awarded to selected Ph.D. students in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

CCF Elite Collegiate Award

One of 100 junior and senior undergraduates selected nationwide for academics, research, and service. Invited speaker and session host at CNCC; team placed 3rd nationwide in the CCSP Team Contest.

Gold Medal, The 2022 ICPC Asia Jinan Regional Contest

Gold medal in the ICPC, the world's premier collegiate algorithmic programming competition.

Silver Medal, National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI)

Silver medal in China's national informatics olympiad for secondary-school students, organized by the China Computer Federation (CCF).

Internships

WeChat AIResearch Intern · Foundation Model Group
Alibaba GroupResearch Intern
MBZUAIResearch Intern
MINE Lab, University of Notre DameResearch Intern
MIT Center for Transportation & LogisticsSummer Research Student
Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering InstituteResearch Intern

Reviewing Service

Conference Reviewer

AAAI 2027; COLM 2026; ICLR 2026; NeurIPS 2026; NLPCC 2025.

ACL Rolling Review Reviewer

February and May 2025 cycles.

Workshop Reviewer

GroundLM and REALM at EMNLP 2026; Social Simulation with LLMs at COLM 2025.

Miscellaneous

Beyond research and competitive programming, he is a passionate enthusiast of films, games, and visual novels. He is especially fond of the works of Tanaka Romeo (田中ロミオ), particularly CROSS†CHANNEL and Rewrite. As time passes, this list has grown shorter: what remains below are the works that have left the deepest and most vivid traces in his memory.

▶ My Favorite Works
  • 蓝宝石般的被害妄想少女
  • 辯護人
  • 大明王朝1566
  • 逆境無頼カイジ
  • 銀と金
  • 家族計画
  • 終のステラ
  • 加奈 〜いもうと〜
  • サクラノ詩
  • AIR
  • Angel Beats!
  • Summer Pockets
  • Planetarian
  • WHITE ALBUM2
  • STEINS;GATE
  • Danganronpa 2