Short Bio

I'm currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science and Technology at Shandong University (SDU). In Oct. 2023, I received my Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), under the supervision of Prof. Jacky Wai Keung. From Jan. to Sept. 2022, I was very honored to visit the Key Laboratory of High Confidence Software Technologies, Ministry of Education (Peking University), where my supervisors are Prof. Zhi Jin and Prof. Ge Li. My current research focuses on software engineering, automated code understanding and generation. I have published over 20 journal and conference research papers in top venues, such as FSE, ISSTA (山东大学首篇), TSE, TOSEM, ICPC, SANER, JSS, ASE, IST. Before pursuing the Ph.D., I received my B.Mgt. degree in Information System from the University of Jinan (UJN) in 2018 and received my M.Sc. degree in Computer Science with Distinction from the CityU in 2019.

I'm actively looking for self-motivated CS students (local/international) with proficient programming capability and experience in deep learning/PLM/LLM (e.g., Python), full-stack website/mobile App development (e.g., Java, JavaScript, and Node.js), or ACM-ICPC (e.g., C and C++). I have one quota for the master's program per year (2025Fall: 1/1), and our group also welcomes undergraduate students to participate in our research activities and group meetings. Feel free to drop me your CV. Thanks!

Selected Publications (*corresponding author)

ClassEval-T: Evaluating Large Language Models in Class-Level Code Translation
Pengyu Xue, Linhao Wu, Zhen Yang*, Chengyi Wang, Xiang Li, Yuxiang Zhang, Jia Li, Ruikai Jin, Yifei Pei, Zhaoyan Shen, Xiran Lyu, Jacky Keung
In Proceedings of the 34th International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA 2025) (CCF-A)

Effectiveness of Symmetric Metamorphic Relations on Validating the Stability of code generation LLM
Pak Yuen Patrick Chan, Jacky Wai Keung, Zhen Yang*
Journal of Systems and Software (JSS 2024) (CCF-B)

Automated Commit Message Generation with Large Language Models: An Empirical Study and Beyond
Pengyu Xue, Linhao Wu, Zhongxing Yu, Zhi Jin, Zhen Yang*, Xinyi Li, Zhenyu Yang, Yue Tan
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE 2024) (CCF-A)

SimAC: Simulating Agile Collaboration to Generate Acceptance Criteria in User Story Elaboration
Yishu Li, Jacky Wai Keung, Zhen Yang*, Xiaoxue Ma, Jingyu Zhang, Shuo Liu
Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2024) (CCF-B)

TerGEC: A Graph Enhanced Contrastive Approach for Program Termination Analysis
Shuo Liu, Jacky Wai Keung, Zhen Yang*, Yihan Liao, Yishu Li
Science of Computer Programming (SCP 2024) (CCF-B)

Exploring and Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models in Automated Code Translation
Zhen Yang, Fang Liu, Zhongxing Yu, Jacky Wai Keung, Jia Li, Shuo Liu, Yifan Hong, Xiaoxue Ma, Zhi Jin, Ge Li
In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE 2024) (CCF-A)

Delving into Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning in Code Change Learning: An Empirical Study
Shuo Liu, Jacky Wai Keung, Zhen Yang*, Fang Liu, Qilin Zhou, Yihan Liao
In Proceedings of the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2024) (CCF-B)

Improving Domain-Specific Neural Code Generation with Few-shot Meta-Learning
Zhen Yang, Jacky Wai Keung, Zeyu Sun, Yunfei Zhao, Ge Li, Zhi Jin, Shuo Liu, Yishu Li
Information and Software Technology (IST 2023) (CCF-B)

On the Significance of Category Prediction for Code-Comment Synchronization
Zhen Yang, Jacky Wai Keung, Xiao Yu, Yan Xiao, Zhi Jin, Jingyu Zhang
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM 2022) (CCF-A)

A Multi-Modal Transformer-based Code Summarization Approach for Smart Contracts
Zhen Yang, Jacky Wai Keung, Xiao Yu, Xiaodong Gu, Zhengyuan Wei, Xiaoxue Ma, Miao Zhang
In Proceedings of the 2021 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC 2021) (CCF-B)

Smart Contracts Vulnerability Auditing with Multi-semantics
Zhen Yang, Jacky Wai Keung, Miao Zhang, Yan Xiao, Yangyang Huang, Tik Hui
In Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE 44th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2020) (CCF-C)