Zifan Jiang

Live in Zurich; used to live in Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing; born in Kunshan, China.

A researcher, an engineer, a backpacker, a gamer.

Four cultures shape the adult me, and here are some basic facts:

  • I fell in love with game consoles and PC when I was a kid. My best summer memories are about Warcraft, Counter-Strike, A/C, and watermelons in our lovely little town.
    • My first dream was to become a professional esports player like 4K^Grubby.
    • My next dream to make a game drove me to university and software engineering.
  • I did not learn much about game development and software engineering in my undergraduate studies, but an extensive liberal arts and humanities education, which shaped my taste and worldview. I met my wife and best friends in life there.
  • I started the hobby for backpacking in Tibet and reading various books.
  • I learned how to code properly through a series of internships and part-time jobs.
  • I was trained to be a serious software engineer in my first full-time job, Zhihu, which was a thriving startup full of hacker spirit and cool ideas and people.
  • Zhihu's early slogan was to "discover a bigger world"; I left it to find a bigger world.
  • I landed in Zurich for my master's, then Covid hit, which fulfilled my desire to try living once in seclusion. I kept reading and hiked a lot in the mountains.
  • The interests in philosophy and linguistics led me to pursue a Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics, where my engineering skills developed over years turned out to be useful.
  • I wanted to tackle automatic sign language translation, which is a challenging and meaningful problem. I do enjoy challenging and meaningful problems:
    • I studied machine learning with Professor Andreas Krause.
    • I studied machine translation with Professor Rico Sennrich.
    • I studied sign language with Professor Sarah Ebling.
    • I studied computer vision with Professor Andrew Zisserman.
    • I collaborate with researchers all over the world; they are the treasures I have.
    • These experiences have prepared me for being a scientist.
  • I traveled every corner of Europe during my Ph.D. The Alps and the Mediterranean are my favorite places, so many cherished memories. I do not want to say goodbye.
  • I am very excited about the future. I hope to see you anywhere on the earth.

    • Experiences

    Skills

    • Languages: Mandarin Chinese (native), Wu Chinese (native), English (C1), German (B1), American Sign Language (A2)
    • Programming Languages: JavaScript, Python, Java, C/C++, LaTeX
    • Tools: Macbook Pro, Chrome, iTerm, VS Code, Git/GitHub
    • Specialties: Natural Language Processing, Computer Vison, Data Science

    Trips

    I have travelled to many places since I started backpacking in 19. I wrote about and linked my favourite destinations such as Tibet and Turkey, and some other good memories are presented in my wife's Instagram stories. I actually liked all the trips because otherwise I would not have kept going here and there. Wish to write them all.

    - North America (road trip)

    • 2024: Miami and the Key West

    - Europe (road trip)

    • 2025: England, Wales, Iceland, Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine
    • 2024: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, Greece (Corfu), Italy (Matera, East Coast)
    • 2023: Montenegro, Greece (Crete, Meteora, Thessaloniki)
    • 2022: Spain & Portugal (Iberian Peninsula), South Italy (Sicily), Spain (the Pyrenees, the Basque Country)
    • 2021: Northern and Central Italy (West Coast), Southern France
    • 2020: Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece (Athens, Peloponnese)
    • 2019: Switzerland (the Alps), Netherlands, Belgium
    • 2017: Turkey (West Coast, Cappadocia)

    - (South) East Asia (backpacking)

    • 2023: Singapore
    • 2018: Phuket Island, Jeju Island, Myanmar
    • 2016: Sri Lanka, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture

    - China (backpacking, hitchhiking)

    • 2015: Chongqing to Tibet (via G317, G318, G219 until Mount Kailash, Zanda County)
    • 2014: Gansu (Qilian Mountains), Qinghai (Qinghai Lake), Hulunbuir, Guangxi
    • 2013: Jiangxi, Sichuan (G318), Northeast China (Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin)
    • 2012: Tibet (Mount Everest), Dunhuang & Jiayuguan City (the Silk Road)

    Favourites

    • Philosophers: Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zhuangzi
    • Writers: Milan Kundera, W. Somerset Maugham, Orhan Pamuk, John Wiliams, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Haruki Murakami, Mu Xin
    • Games: Dota2, Braid, Civilization, Assassin's Creed Odyssey
    • Sports: hiking, cycling, swimming, skiing, football, basketball
    • Club: Chelsea F.C.

    Links

    Posts

    Quotes

    • "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." ― Ludwig Wittgenstein
    • "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." ― The Great Gatsby
    • "Know thyself." - Temple of Apollo at Delphi
    • (to be added ...)