My name is Xin Zhou, and I am currently a Research Scientist (equivalent to a Postdoctoral Fellow) in Software Engineering at Singapore Management University (SMU), under the supervision of Prof. David Lo.

I received my Ph.D. in January 2025 from the School of Computing and Information Systems, Singapore Management University, where I had the great honor of working with Prof. David Lo and being a member of SOAR. Prior to that, I obtained my Bachelor’s degree from Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT).

Education

• B.S. in Automation Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, August 2016 – July 2020
• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Singapore Management University, 2025 August 2020 – January 2025.

Research Interest

My research interest mainly lies in:

• Understanding the ability of large language models of code (ICSME’21, ICPC’23, ESEC/FSE’23, ASE’23);
• Enhancing the ability of large language models of code (ICSME’23, TOSEM’23, TSE’23, ICSE’24).

Publications

• [TOSEM 2025]. Large language model for vulnerability detection and repair: Literature review and the road ahead
  Xin Zhou, Sicong Cao, Xiaobing Sun, David Lo

• [TOSEM 2025]. Exploring Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning Techniques for Code Generation with Large Language Models
  Martin Weyssow, Xin Zhou, Kisub Kim, David Lo, Houari Sahraoui

• [TOSEM 2025]. How are We Detecting Inconsistent Method Names? An Empirical Study from Code Review Perspective
  Kisub Kim, Xin Zhou, Dongsun Kim, Julia Lawall, Kui Liu, Tegawendé F Bissyandé, Jacques Klein, Jaekwon Lee, David Lo

• [EMSM 2025]. Bridging expert knowledge with deep learning techniques for just-in-time defect prediction
  Xin Zhou, DongGyun Han, David Lo

• [ICSE 2024]. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Better Automatic Vulnerability Repair by Broadening Input Ranges and Sources
  Xin Zhou, Kisub Kim, Bowen Xu, DongGyun Han, David Lo

• [ICSE 2024]. Curiosity-Driven Testing for Sequential Decision-Making Process
  Junda He, Zhou Yang, Jieke Shi, Chengran Yang, Kisub Kim, Bowen Xu, Xin Zhou, David Lo

• [TSE 2024]. Leveraging Large Language Model for Automatic Patch Correctness Assessment
  Xin Zhou, Bowen Xu, Kisub Kim, DongGyun Han, Hung Huu Nguyen, Thanh Le-Cong, Junda He, Bach Le, and David Lo

• [ASE 2023]. The Devil is in the Tails: How Long-Tailed Code Distributions Impact Large Language Models
  Xin Zhou, Kisub Kim, Bowen Xu, Jiakun Liu, DongGyun Han, David Lo

• [ICSME 2023]. CCBERT: Self-Supervised Code Change Representation Learning
  Xin Zhou, Bowen Xu, DongGyun Han, Zhou Yang, Junda He, David Lo

• [ESEC/FSE 2023]. On the Usage of Continual Learning for Out-of-Distribution Generalization in Pre-trained Language Models of Code
  Martin Weyssow, Xin Zhou, Kisub Kim, David Lo, Houari Sahraoui

• [TOSEM 2023]. Representation Learning for Stack Overflow Posts: How Far are We?
  Junda He, Xin Zhou, Bowen Xu, Ting Zhang, Kisub Kim, Zhou Yang, Ivana Clairine Irsan, Ferdian Thung, David Lo

• [TSE 2023]. DexBERT: Effective, Task-Agnostic and Fine-grained Representation Learning of Android Bytecode
  Tiezhu Sun, Kevin Allix, Kisub Kim, Xin Zhou, Dongsun Kim, David Lo, Tegawendé F Bissyandé, Jacques Klein

• [ICPC 2023]. Generation-based Code Review Automation: How Far Are We?
  Xin Zhou, Kisub Kim, Bowen Xu, DongGyun Han, Junda He, David Lo

• [ICPC 2022]. Simple or Complex? Together for a More Accurate Just-in-time Defect Predictor
  Xin Zhou, DongGyun Han, David Lo

• [ASE 2022]. Answer Summarization for Technical Queries: Benchmark and New Approach
  Chengran Yang, Bowen Xu, Ferdian Thung, Yucen Shi, Ting Zhang, Zhou Yang, Xin Zhou, Jieke Shi, Junda He, Donggyun Han, David Lo

• [ICSME 2021]. Assessing generalizability of CodeBERT
  Xin Zhou, DongGyun Han, David Lo

Teaching

• Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Programming, Singapore Management University, 2022.
• Teaching Assistant, Advanced Research Topics, Singapore Management University, 2023.
• Teaching Assistant, Advanced Research Topics, Singapore Management University, 2024.

Services

• Program Committee of Research Track, ICSE 2026
• Reviewer, ACM IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)
• Reviewer, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS)
• Distinguished Junior Program Committee Reviewer, MSR 2024
• Reviewer, Empirical Software Engineering: An International Journal (EMSE)
• Reviewer, Automated Software Engineering: An International Journal
• Reviewer, Communications of the ACM (CACM)
• Program Committee, AIware 2025
• Program Committee, FORGE 2024 and FORGE 2025
• Junior PC member of the Technical Papers Track @ MSR’24
• Junior PC member of the Technical Papers Track @ MSR’23
• Student Volunteer @ ICSME’23

Honors & Awards

• SMU Presidential Doctoral Fellowship in Computing, 2024
• Full Scholarship for the Ph.D. study, 2020 - 2024.
• Outstanding Student Award at Beijing Institute of Technology, 2018.