Dazhi Zhao

Shanghai, China

Hi! I’m Dazhi Zhao, a final-year undergraduate at Tongji University majoring in Engineering Mechanics. I’m originally from Xi’an, one of the oldest cities in China.

When it comes to research, what really excites me is the idea of turning the forward simulators we already have into tools for solving inverse problems.

My early work includes surrogate modeling and generative inverse design. More recently, I have been moving toward differentiable simulation, and I’ve become increasingly fascinated by using gradients to turn traditional forward simulators into tools for optimization, inference, and design.

Lately, I’ve been especially curious about differentiating through systems with stochasticity or discrete events, where useful gradients become much less straightforward.

At Tongji, I am fortunate to be advised by Prof. Keke Tang (FCM Lab) and Prof. Rui Fan (MIAS Group), working on data-driven modeling and generative inverse design. I previously worked as a research intern with Prof. Tianju Xue (CMSL Group) at HKUST, focusing on differentiable simulation for inverse problems in additive manufacturing.

Selected Publications † Equal contribution

Autoregressive Inverse Design of Disordered Metamaterials for Target Nonlinear Response

D. Zhao, Y. Xiang, P. Zhang, N. Liu, X. Wang, and K. Tang

Thin-Walled Structures, Jun 2026

DOI BIB PDF

@article{zhao2026autoregressive,
  title = {{Autoregressive Inverse Design of Disordered Metamaterials for Target Nonlinear Response}},
  author = {Zhao, D. and Xiang, Y. and Zhang, P. and Liu, N. and Wang, X. and Tang, K.},
  year = {2026},
  month = jun,
  journal = {Thin-Walled Structures},
  doi = {10.1016/j.tws.2026.114793},
  volume = {225},
  pages = {114793}
}

Material-Aware Rapid Prediction of Low-Velocity Impact Damage in Laminated Composites via Surrogate Modeling

D. Zhao^†, Y. Liu^†, Y. Xiang, P. Zhang, X. Wang, and K. Tang

International Journal of Damage Mechanics, Aug 2026

DOI BIB PDF

@article{zhao2026impact,
  title = {{Material-Aware Rapid Prediction of Low-Velocity Impact Damage in Laminated Composites via Surrogate Modeling}},
  author = {Zhao, D. and Liu, Y. and Xiang, Y. and Zhang, P. and Wang, X. and Tang, K.},
  journal = {International Journal of Damage Mechanics},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  doi = {10.1177/10567895261481684},
}

Physics-Constrained Neural Networks for High-Fidelity Composite Failure Envelopes

R. Zhang, D. Zhao, P. Zhang, and K. Tang

Composite Structures, May 2026

DOI BIB PDF

@article{zhang2026failure,
  title = {{Physics-Constrained Neural Networks for High-Fidelity Composite Failure Envelopes}},
  author = {Zhang, R. and Zhao, D. and Zhang, P. and Tang, K.},
  year = {2026},
  month = may,
  journal = {Composite Structures},
  volume = {388},
  doi = {10.1016/j.compstruct.2026.120358},
  pages = {120358}
}

Physics-Guided Diffusion Models for Inverse Design of Disordered Metamaterials

Z. Xie, W. Xu, D. Zhao, W. Zhang, D. Dong, B. Xu, N. Liu, S. Mao, and T. Xue

npj Computational Materials, Sep 2026

DOI BIB PDF

@article{xie2026diffusion,
  title = {{Physics-Guided Diffusion Models for Inverse Design of Disordered Metamaterials}},
  author = {Xie, Z. and Xu, W. and Zhao, D. and Zhang, W. and Dong, D. and Xu, B. and Liu, N. and Mao, S. and Xue, T.},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  journal = {npj Computational Materials},
  doi = {10.1038/s41524-026-02328-y},
}

Dazhi Zhao 赵大志

Selected Publications † Equal contribution

Projects

JumpGrad: Differentiable Optimization through Stochastic Mechanics

GUI for Phase-Field Fracture Simulation

Reinforcement Learning for Torque Control