CV

Curriculum Vitae — Zelin Li

Zelin Li  李泽霖

Research Associate, City University of Hong Kong · Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (CityU HK, 2026)
Hong Kong SAR, China | chiellini.lee@gmail.com | chiellini.github.io
⇩  Download full CV (PDF)Google Scholar ↗
107 citations · h-index 6 · i10-index 4 (Google Scholar, as of Oct 2026)
Last updated: October 2026 — the publication list below is kept more complete than the PDF.

I work on computer vision and computational biology. My Ph.D. research at City University of Hong Kong developed deep-learning pipelines for 3D/4D microscopic image analysis — segmentation, tracking, and lineage analysis of living C. elegans embryos — published at venues including Nature Communications, CVPR, and ICLR. I am currently a Research Associate at CityU HK, and founder of AI-Tender-Writer (HK Tech 300 Seed Fund & HKSTP Ideation Programme), building multi-agent large-language-model systems for automated tender document generation.

Education

2020 – 2026 Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, HK Thesis: Intelligent Processing and Analysis of Caenorhabditis elegans Microscopic Images
2016 – 2020 B.Eng. in EIE (Major), Huazhong University of Science and Technology, CN Thesis: Blockchain Architecture Design for Smart Healthcare Scenarios
2017 – 2020 B.S. in Finance (Minor), Huazhong University of Science and Technology, CN Thesis: A Study on the Impact of FinTech on the Stock Performance of Chinese Commercial Banks: A Text-Based Analysis of Annual Reports

Academic Appointments and Experience

2026 – Present Research Associate, City University of Hong Kong, HK
2025 Research Associate, CityU HK & Oxford Joint Research Center (CIMDA), HK
2019 – 2020 Blockchain Algorithm Developer (Intern), HUST Dian Group & HK ASTRI, CN

Publications

* Equal contribution    # Corresponding author    Author names in teal are mine.

Journal Articles

  1. EmbSAM: Cell boundary localization and Segment Anything Model for fast images of developing embryos.
    Guoye Guan*, Cunmin Zhao*, Zelin Li*, Pei Zhang, Yixuan Chen, Pohao Ye, Ming-Kin Wong, Lu-Yan Chan, Hong Yan, Chao Tang, et al.
    Communications Biology 9, 8 (2026)
  2. Cell lineage-resolved embryonic morphological map reveals signaling associated with cell fate and size asymmetry.
    Guoye Guan*, Zelin Li*, Yiming Ma*, Pohao Ye*, Jianfeng Cao, Ming-Kin Wong, Vincy Wing Sze Ho, Lu-Yan Chan, Hong Yan#, Chao Tang#, et al.
    Nature Communications 16(1), 3700 (2025)
  3. An effective method for quantification, visualization, and analysis of 3D cell shape during early embryogenesis.
    Zelin Li#, Zhaoke Huang, Jianfeng Cao#, Guoye Guan, Zhongying Zhao, Hong Yan.
    Quantitative Biology 13(1), e83 (2025)
  4. A Fusion Model With Effective Multi-Scale Parallel Transformer for Cellular Segmentation.
    Zhaoke Huang#, Zelin Li, Hong Yan.
    IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (2025)
  5. CShaperApp: Segmenting and analyzing cellular morphologies of the developing Caenorhabditis elegans embryo.
    Jianfeng Cao, Zelin Li, Hong Yan.
    Quantitative Biology 12, 329 (2024)
  6. Deep learning-based enhancement of fluorescence labeling for accurate cell lineage tracing during embryogenesis.
    Zelin Li*, Dongying Xie*, Yiming Ma*, Cunmin Zhao, Sicheng You, Hong Yan#, Zhongying Zhao.
    Bioinformatics 40(11), btae626 (2024)

Conference Proceedings

  1. Recover Cell Tensor: Diffusion-Equivalent Tensor Completion for Fluorescence Microscopy Imaging.
    Chenwei Wang*, Zhaoke Huang*, Zelin Li#, Wenqi Zhu.
    International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) (2026)
  2. MSTF-Net: A UAV-Oriented Multi-Spectral Video Segmentation Method via Modality-Robust, Scale-Adaptive, and Consistent Fusion.
    Chenwei Wang, Zhida Wang, Zelin Li#, Elif Ozden-Yenigun, Houde Liu.
    The CAAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (CICAI) (2026)
  3. Volume Tells: Dual Cycle-Consistent Diffusion for 3D Fluorescence Microscopy De-noising and Super-Resolution.
    Zelin Li*, Chenwei Wang*, Zhaoke Huang#, Yiming Ma, Cunming Zhao, Zhongying Zhao, Hong Yan.
    IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) pp. 16091–16100 (2025)
  4. Directional And Topological Transformer With Topology Priors For 4D Cellular Image Segmentation.
    Zelin Li#, Zhaoke Huang, Zhen Zhu, Sicheng You, Zhongying Zhao, Hong Yan.
    IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) pp. 2902–2908 (2024)
  5. 3D Cellular Segmentation of Live Embryos via Topologically and Biologically Boundary-aware Semi-supervised Learning.
    Zelin Li#, Zhaoke Huang, Hong Yan.
    IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) pp. 3312–3317 (2024)

Preprints and Manuscripts under Review

  1. CTransformer: Deep-transformer-based 3D cell membrane tracking with subcellular-resolved molecular quantification.
    Zelin Li*, Guoye Guan*, Xiu Xian*, Dongying Xie, Yiming Ma, Sicheng You, Zhen Zhu, Darrick Lee, Zirui Zhang, Zhuoheng Ran, et al.
    Under review at Nature Methods (2026)
  2. Pointing-VLA: Typed Spatial Grounding Interfaces for Vision-Language-Action Manipulation.
    Xiwen Chen, Rigaudiere Z. Li#, Zhiruo Zhou, Huiming Chen, Chenwei Wang, Xiaojun Zhu.
    Submitted to AAAI 2027
  3. Think Only When Needed: Prompt-Authority Control for Selective Slow-Path Intervention in Vision-Language-Action Manipulation.
    Zhiruo Zhou, Rigaudiere Z. Li#, Xiwen Chen, Jiazhuo Li, Huiming Chen, Chenwei Wang, Xiaojun Zhu.
    Submitted to AAAI 2027
  4. Adaptive Safety Filtering for Frozen ACC Policies via Conformal Residual Calibration.
    Zhiruo Zhou*, Rigaudiere Z. Li*#, Xiwen Chen, Yucheng Chen, Xiaojun Zhu, Houde Liu.
    arXiv:2609.35415 (2026)
  5. Frozen Flows Forget: Diagnosing and Restoring Lost Motion in a Latent-flow World Model.
    Xiwen Chen, Rigaudiere Z. Li, Zhiruo Zhou, Xiaojun Zhu, Houde Liu.
    arXiv:2609.28414 (2026)
  6. Dinomaly2: A Unified Framework for Unsupervised Image Anomaly Detection.
    Jia Guo, Shuai Lu, Lei Fan, Zelin Li, Donglin Di, Yang Song, Weihang Zhang, Wenbing Zhu, Hong Yan, Fang Chen, Huiqi Li, Hongen Liao.
    arXiv:2510.17611 (2025), extended version of a CVPR 2025 paper
  7. A Method for Quantitative Analysis of Long-distance Cellular Communication in 3D Time-lapse in vivo Living Embryos.
    Zelin Li, Zhongying Zhao, Hong Yan.
    Preprint (2023)

Patents

2025 A Method and System for Automated Construction Tender Bidding Document Generation
U.S. patent application (pending). Inventors: Zelin Li, Huiming Chen, Hong Yan, Zhida Wang, Zirui Zhang, Zhuoheng Ran. Assigned to the Centre for Intelligent Multidimensional Data Analysis Limited (CIMDA), Hong Kong SAR.
2024 System and Method for Generating a Morphological Atlas of an Embryo
U.S. patent application US 2024/0395059 A1 (published Nov 2024, pending; priority Nov 2021). Inventors: Zelin Li (first inventor), Jianfeng Cao, Hong Yan. Assigned to the Centre for Intelligent Multidimensional Data Analysis Limited (CIMDA), Hong Kong SAR.

Research and Industry Projects

2025 – Present AI-Tender-Writer — Founder & Person-in-Charge
A multi-agent AI system integrating large language models, a domain knowledge graph with Graph-RAG retrieval, and reinforcement learning from expert preference to automatically generate regulation-compliant construction tender documents. Funded by the HK Tech 300 Seed Fund (City University of Hong Kong) and the HKSTP Ideation Programme. Outcomes include a U.S. patent application (first inventor) and conference papers under review.

Honors and Academic Services

2026 HKSTP Ideation Programme Awardee (PIC), HKSTP.
2025 HK Tech 300 Seed Fund Awardee (PIC), City University of Hong Kong.
2022 & 2024 Invited Trainer, EMBO Practical Course, European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
2020 Outstanding Graduate Honor, HUST.   Outstanding Graduation Thesis Award, HUST.
2017 National Encouragement Scholarship, Ministry of Education, China.
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