Hi, I am Zhaochen Su (苏肇辰), an incoming PhD student co-supervised by Prof. Junxian He and Prof. May Fung at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) starting in the fall of 2025.

I obtained my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Soochow University, advised by Prof. Juntao Li and Prof. Min Zhang.

🧠 In the era of generative AI, I am passionate about understanding knowledge and reasoning in LLM/LVLM. My work has explored the operational mechanisms of model knowledge (ConflictBank), the adaptation to time-sensitive knowledge (LMLM, SG-TLM), and universal temporal reasoning (CotempoQA, Timo).

🤖 Now, in the era of agentic AI, I am highly interested in the next generation of multimodal agent models. My current focus is on training complex, human-like think-act models that leverage advanced and diverse multimodal toolsets (Openthinkimg).

📖 Can the progress of civilization, and the advancement of technology truly transcend time? Or are we just endlessly pursuing the elusive dust in the hourglass? — Just some of my thoughts.

🔥 News

• 2025.7:  🎉🎉 Check out our new survey, the first survey on the reasoning paradigm shift from “Think with Text” to “Think with Image” (800+🌟 on GitHub)!
• 2025.5:  🎉🎉 Check out our new project OpenThinkIMG, the first end-to-end open-source framework that empowers LVLMs to think with images (300+🌟 on GitHub)! .
• 2025.3:  🎉🎉 Check out our new survey, the first comprehensive survey on Efficient CoT in LLM/LVLM!
• 2025.1:  🎉🎉 Check out our new paper PRMBench, the first process-level reward benchmark!

📝 Publications

• Arxiv 25.07 Thinking with Images for Multimodal Reasoning: Foundations, Methods, and Future Frontiers Zhaochen Su, Peng Xia, Hangyu Guo, Zhenhua Liu, Yan Ma, Xiaoye Qu, Jiaqi Liu, Yanshu Li, Kaide Zeng, Zhengyuan Yang, Linjie Li, Yu Cheng, Heng Ji, Junxian He, Yi R. Fung

• Arxiv 25.05OpenThinkIMG: Learning to Think with Images via Visual Tool Reinforcement Learning, Zhaochen Su, Linjie Li, Mingyang Song, Yunzhuo Hao, Zhengyuan Yang, Jun Zhang, Guanjie Chen, Jiawei Gu, Juntao Li, Xiaoye Qu, Yu Cheng

• ACL 2025 PRMBench: A Fine-grained and Challenging Benchmark for Process-Level Reward Models, Mingyang Song, Zhaochen Su, Xiaoye Qu, Jiawei Zhou, Yu Cheng

• Neurips 2024 ConflictBank: A Benchmark for Evaluating Knowledge Conflicts in Large Language Models, Zhaochen Su, Jun Zhang, Xiaoye Qu, Tong Zhu, Yanshu Li, Jiashuo Sun, Juntao Li, Min Zhang, Yu Cheng.

• COLM 2024 Timo: Towards Better Temporal Reasoning for Language Models, Zhaochen Su, Jun Zhang, Tong Zhu, Xiaoye Qu, Juntao Li, Min Zhang, Yu Cheng.

• ACL 2024 oral Living in the Moment: Can Large Language Models Grasp Co-Temporal Reasoning?, Zhaochen Su, Juntao Li, Jun Zhang, Tong Zhu, Xiaoye Qu, Pan Zhou, Yan Bowen, Yu Cheng, Min zhang

• EMNLP 2024 SURf: Teaching Large Vision-Language Models to Selectively Utilize Retrieved Information, Jiashuo Sun, Jihai Zhang, Yucheng Zhou, Zhaochen Su, Xiaoye Qu, Yu Cheng

• EMNLP 2023 Efficient Continue Training of Temporal Language Model with Structural Information, Zhaochen Su, Juntao Li, Zikang Zhang, Zihan Zhou, Min Zhang

• EMNLP 2022 Improving Temporal Generalization of Pre-trained Language Models with Lexical Semantic Change, Zhaochen Su, Zecheng Tang, Xinyan Guan, Lijun Wu, Min Zhang, Juntao Li

• Arxiv 25.03 A Survey of Efficient Reasoning for Large Reasoning Models: Language, Multimodality, and Beyond, Xiaoye Qu, Yafu Li, Zhaochen Su, Weigao Sun, Jianhao Yan, Dongrui Liu, Ganqu Cui, Daizong Liu, Shuxian Liang, Junxian He, Peng Li, Wei Wei, Jing Shao, Chaochao Lu, Yue Zhang, Xian-Sheng Hua, Bowen Zhou, Yu Cheng

🎖 Honors and Awards

• National Scholarship in China
• Soochow University Graduate Outstanding Scholarship (Rank 1st)
• The Samsung Scholarship
• China Software Design Competition – First Prize (National Level, Team Leader)
• Chinese Collegiate Computing Competition – Second Prize (National Level, Team Leader)

📖 Educations

• 2022.09 - 2025.07, Third-year Master, Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Soochow University, Suzhou.
• 2018.09 - 2022.06, Bachelor, Institute of Computer Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou.
• 2021.07 - 2022.07, Dual Degree, Brain Science, Soochow University, Suzhou.

💁 Volunteer

• Area Chair: ACL ARR 2025
• Reviewer: COLM-25, ICLR-25, ARR-24, EMNLP-24, MM-24, ACL-24, COLM-24
• 2023.09 - 2024.12, Soochow University Graduate Student Union - President
• 2020.05 - 2021.05, Students’ International Communication Association (SICA) - President

💻 Internships

• 2023.10 - 2025.05, Shanghai AI Laboratory, China.
• 2021.06 - 2021.09, World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO, China.

🎨 Miscellaneous

I’m passionate about photography, philosophy, and sports. Staying active is a daily priority for me — some of my go-to activities include 🏋️ fitness, 🏓 table tennis, 🎾 tennis, 🏃 running, 🚴 cycling, and 🥾 hiking. I love the challenge of pushing my limits and exploring the outdoors. If you’re into fitness too, feel free to reach out to me, and let’s keep each other motivated!