Ren Wang’s Academic Homepage

News

• I’m applying for PhD programs in theoretical neuroscience & NeuroAI starting 2026 Fall!
• I’m sorry that I cannot attend NeurIPS and workshops in person! Please see here for the abstract, poster, and 5-minute video summary of our work!

Biography

Nihao!

My name is Ren WANG (王韧), and I’m a master’s student at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen, China. My advisor is Prof. Pengcheng Zhou at Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology, and I’m also collaborating with Prof. Jin Bao at Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. Xue-Xin Wei at UT Austin. I used to work at SUSTech as a research assistant, and studied math at SUSTech as an undergrad.

I’m broadly conducting research on theoretical neuroscience, neural data science, and NeuroAI. To be specific, I’m interested in the information representation and processing mechanisms in biological systems. For example,

• how is information propagated in the brain networks through neuronal population firing patterns;
• how can we extract topological and geometric properties to intuitively understand the mechanisms;
• and how can these mechanisms inspire us to design interpretable artificial intelligent systems.

To achieve this goal, I develop geometry- and topology-aware data analysis tools with deep learning models, and apply them on in vivo neuronal population recordings during perception, spatial navigation, motor control, and other brain functions.

In my nerdy spare time, I enjoy reading and writing stuff, watching movies, training in the gym, karaoke-ing anime songs, and hanging out with campus cats.

The best way to reach me is through email (listed in the left column). You are welcome to communicate with me about anything (past or potential research projects, PhD applications, anime recommendation, etc).

About My Name

TLDR: You can linearly interpolate my name as “Ren(t) Wan(t)” with silent t’s.

My full legal name is 王韧, where 王 /wáng/ is the family name, which means “king” as a Chinese character, and is arguably the most popular family name on this planet. 韧 /rèn/ (韌 in traditional Chinese) was given by my father, although he claimed to imply deep etymological roots, I believe it just means “tough” for a material or human mind.

About the pronunciation: the “a” in “wang” is a long “aah”, and “ng” is a nasal “n”. The “r” in “ren” is like “s” in “treasure”, or “zh/ж” in Russian, as in “Brezhnev/Брежнев” the Soviet leader. The “e” in “ren” is a short and soft “uh”. You can neglect the tones if you don’t understand them.

Any estimation not farther than “Ryan Wayne” can be recognized by me.