Webinar #30: Automated Formula Discovery using Symbolic Regression

Speaker: Jinghui Zhong, South China University of Technology
Date: 29 November 2025
Time: 5:00 – 6:00pm (Beijing Time, UTC+8) [Convert to your local time]
Zoom link: https://vuw.zoom.us/j/93884326097
Zhong Jinghui, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at South China University of Technology (SCUT). His main research interests lie in the design and application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms. In recent years, he has published over 100 academic papers in internationally renowned journals and conferences, with over 40 appearing in IEEE/ACM Transactions series journals. He has led more than 20 scientific research projects at the national, provincial, and university-industry cooperation levels. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for the journals Memetic Computing and ICT Express, and the Vice Chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Guangzhou Chapter.
This report will discuss the advances and applications of Symbolic Regression (SR) technology. Firstly, I will introduce the technical background of SR and its latest research developments. Next, I will present two new SR techniques recently proposed by our group: one is an improved SR method assisted by a Transformer pre-trained model, and the other is an improved method guided by geometric semantics.Finally, I will discuss the application expansion of SR, demonstrating how Genetic Programming-based SR can be utilized for the automated discovery of potential mathematical laws and conjectures.
Webinar #31: TBA

Speaker: Yuan Sun, La Trobe University, Australia
Date: Feb 2026
Time: TBA (Australia Time, UTC+10) [Convert to your local time]
Zoom link: TBA
Webinar #32: TBA

Speaker: Shengcai Liu, Southern University of Science and Technology, China
Date: March 2026
Time: TBA (China Time, UTC+8) [Convert to your local time]
Zoom link: TBA
Webinar #33: TBA

Speaker: Yining Ma, MIT, USA
Date: 28 April 2026
Time: TBA (China Time, UTC+8) [Convert to your local time]
Zoom link: TBA
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