Zijun Cui

I am a Master's student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at University of Washington. Currently, I am a member of NeuroAI Lab advised by Prof. Eli Shlizerman. My research interests include Multimodal Spatial Understanding, Multimodal Learning & Generation, and Embodied AI.

Before UW, I was a research assistant at State Key Laboratory of CAD&CG in College of Computer Science and Technology at Zhejiang University, supervised by Prof. Zhaopeng Cui.

My full name is pronounced as /ziˈdʒʊn tsweɪ/, with the "C" in Cui sounding like “ts”.

I am actively seeking research opportunities. Feel free to email me if you would like to collaborate!

Email: zijuncui@uw.edu

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News

  • [Sep. 2025] One first co-author paper accepted to NeurIPS 2025 as Oral presentation (0.36% acceptance rate)!
  • [Jan. 2025] Joined the NeuroAI Lab at UW, working with Prof. Eli Shlizerman on audio-visual research.
  • [Sep. 2024] Join ECE department at University of Washington, Seattle, as a master student.
  • [Jun. 2024] Received Bachelor of Engineering degree from Zhejiang University.
  • Research
    SAVVY: Spatial Awareness via Audio-Visual LLMs through Seeing and Hearing
    Mingfei Chen*, Zijun Cui*, Xiulong Liu*, Jinlin Xiang, Caleb Zheng, Jingyuan Li, Eli Shlizerman
    Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2025 (Oral)

    webpage / demo / github / bibtex

    We introduce SAVVY-Bench, the first benchmark for 3D spatial reasoning in dynamic audio-visual scenes. We also propose SAVVY, a novel training-free pipeline integrating egocentric spatial tracks and dynamic global maps, which significantly enhances AV-LLM performance for improved audio-visual spatial awareness in such environments.

    Undergraduate Research Experience
    PC-Planner: Physics-Constrained Self-Supervised Learning for Robust Neural Motion Planning
    Research assistant before graduation, NOT official author | SIGGRAPH Asia 2024
    State Key Laboratory of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University

    arxiv / webpage / code

    Participated in the research and provided result verification support for a physics-constrained self-supervised learning framework for robot motion planning in complex 3D environments.

    Influence of Split Teeth on the Performance of Linear Permanent Magnet Vernier Motor
    Hui Wang, Yanxin Li, Zijun Cui, Qinfen Lu | LDIA 2023
    College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University

    paper

    Investigated different split tooth structures in linear permanent magnet Vernier motors through finite element analysis, comparing non-split-tooth, two-split-teeth, and three-split-teeth configurations to optimize thrust ripple and motor performance.

    Education
    2024.09 - Present Pursuing M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, United States.
    Graduate Researcher at NeuroAI Lab, Advisor: Eli Shlizerman.
    2024.02 - 2024.06 Research Assistant at State Key Laboratory of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University.
    Advisor: Zhaopeng Cui.
    2020.09 - 2024.06 B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
    Awards & Honors

  • [Oct. 2021] Academic Excellent Award, Zhejiang University.
  • [Jun. 2021] Excellent Student Cadre, Zhejiang University.
  • [Jun. 2022] Student Leadership Award, Zhejiang University.
  • [Oct. 2022] Excellent Student Leadership Award, Zhejiang University.
  • Thanks to Jon Barron for providing this amazing template.