Zhicheng Pan

Zhicheng Pan

Surrender as late as possible. ⏳

Zhicheng Pan

I am an incoming postdoctoral fellow at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where I will work with Prof. Sibo Wang. I received my Ph.D. from the School of Data Science and Engineering at East China Normal University (ECNU), advised by Prof. Aoying Zhou and Prof. Chengcheng Yang. My current research interests center on the interaction between large language models and query optimizers.

I previously visited the Database Research Group at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), where I collaborated with IEEE Fellow Prof. Jianliang Xu. I have also worked as a research intern at Tencent with Huichao Duan, at PingCAP TiDB with Yuanjia Zhang, Terry Purcell, and Yu Dong, and at Alibaba Cloud with Yingying Zhang and Qingsong Wen. Earlier, I was a data development intern at Taobao, working with Huajun Deng.

Selected Publications

# indicates co-first authors; * indicates corresponding authors.

  • Z Pan, W Sun, Y Zhang, T Purcell, Y Dong, C Yang, R Zhang, X Zhou, J Xu. OBELISK: Efficient Offline Query Planning with Bayesian Optimization-Informed Language Model Reasoning. PVLDB'26. CCF-A

  • Z Pan, Y Zhang, C Yang, A Ghazal, R Zhang, H Hu, X Wu, Y Dong, X Zhou. Hyper: Hybrid Physical Design Advisor with Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning. ICDE'25. CCF-A

  • Z Pan, Y Wang, Y Zhang, SB Yang, Y Cheng, P Chen, C Guo, Q Wen, X Tian, Y Dou, Z Zhou, C Yang, A Zhou, B Yang. MagicScaler: Uncertainty-aware, Predictive Autoscaling. PVLDB'23. CCF-A

  • Z Pan, J Fang, P Chao, W Chen, J Xu, L Zhao. Garden: A Real-time Processing Framework for Continuous Top-k Trajectory Similarity Search. KAIS'23. CCF-B

  • Z Pan, P Chao, J Fang, W Chen, Z Li, A Liu. TraSP: A General Framework for Online Trajectory Similarity Processing. WISE. CCF-B

  • Z Hu, S Weng, Z Pan, R Zhang, C Yang, P Cai, X Zhou, Q Xu, C Yang. Vodka: Rethink Benchmarking Philosophy in HTAP Systems. PVLDB'26. CCF-A

  • S Weng, H Yang, Z Hu, R Zhang, Z Pan, C Yang, X Zhou, Y Chen, X He, A Pan. Pisco: An Isolation Bug Case Reduction and Deduplication Framework. PVLDB'26. CCF-A

  • L Chen#, Q Zheng#, Z Pan#, C Yang, R Zhang, X Zhou. BOND: A Co-Designed Framework for LLM-Powered Analytics Over Relational Data. ICDE'26. CCF-A

  • Y Liu, Y Lin, Z Pan, C Yang, Y Li, A Zhou. APEX: Adaptive Variable-wise Parallel Execution for Worst-Case Optimal Joins on Graph Queries. ICDE'26. CCF-A

  • Y Han, Z Pan*, L Chen, C Yang, R Zhang, X Zhou. Q-Doctor: Retrieval-Augmented Diagnosis and Multi-Agent Correction for Query Performance Anomalies. DASFAA'26. CCF-B

  • W Sun#, Z Pan#, Z Hu, Y Liu, C Yang, R Zhang, X Zhou. Rabbit: Retrieval-Augmented Generation Enables Better Automatic Database Knob Tuning. ICDE'25. CCF-A

  • X Qiu#, X Li#, R Pang#, Z Pan#, X Wu#, L Yang#, J Hu, Y Shu, X Lu, C Yang, C Guo, A Zhou, C S. Jensen, B Yang. EasyTime: Time Series Forecasting Made Easy. ICDE'25. CCF-A

  • J Fang, J Li, C Feng, Z Pan, J Xu, P Zhao. SeeD: Online Similarity-Preserving Pattern Discovery for Streaming Trajectories. Pattern Recognition'25. CCF-B

  • J Li, J Fang, Z Pan, P Chao, J Xu, P Zhao. CF-TS: A General Coarse-to-Fine Method for Trajectory Simplification. DASFAA'25. CCF-B

  • C Fan#, Z Pan#, W Sun, C Yang, WN Chen. LATuner: an LLM-enhanced database tuning system based on adaptive surrogate model. ECML'24. CCF-B

  • T Gu, J Fang, Z Pan, Y Wu, Y Ban, P Chao, L Zhao. HPS: A novel heuristic hierarchical pruning strategy for dynamic top-k trajectory similarity query. IPM'24. CCF-B

  • C Feng, Z Pan, J Fang, J Xu, P Zhao, L Zhao. Aries: Accurate Metric-based Representation Learning for Fast Top-k Trajectory Similarity Query. CIKM'22. CCF-B

  • J Tao, Z Pan, J Fang, P Chao, P Zhao, J Xu. Misty: Microservice-based Streaming Trajectory Similarity Search. ICSOC'22. CCF-B

Awards and Grants

  • Shanghai Outstanding Graduate, 2026. （上海市优秀毕业生）
  • 1st Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program (Doctoral Program), China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). 3,226 nationwide. （中国科协青年人才托举工程博士生专项计划）
  • Outstanding Student Honor, East China Normal University, 2024.
  • ECNU Academic Innovation Promotion Program for Excellent Doctoral Students (YBNLTS2024-017).
  • First Prize for Outstanding Student, VLDB Summer School, 2023 (1st Place).
  • First Prize, Industry Scholarship, School of Data Science and Engineering, 2023 (1st Place).
  • Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (SJCX2_11342).
  • Outstanding Graduate, Soochow University, 2019 & 2022.
  • “Information technology-General spatiotemporal information application support platform-Reference architecture” (T/CIE 131-2022). Main Drafter.