Ziqiao "Martin" Ma

Here is a virtual but warm greeting from Ziqiao, as you just came across his page! As many of my non-Chinese friends found it hard to pronounce my Chinese name (马子乔 pronounced as Tsz-Chaw in Mandarin), it's absolutely fine to just call me Martin alternatively.

I am a second-year Ph.D. student in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. I work with Professor Joyce Chai as a member of the Situated Language and Embodied Dialogue (SLED) Lab. I am also enrolled in the Cognitive Science program. Prior than that, I obtained my Dual Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science at the University of Michigan and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

My current research focuses on Natural Language Processing (Language Grounding, Dialogue Systems, Language Acquisition), Embodied AI (Human-Robot Communication, Navigation, Instruction Following), and Machine Learning (Graph Neural Networks, Data-Efficient Learning).

Updates

⚠ ⚠ ⚠

• My undergrad collaborators, Jiayi Pan and Yidong Huang, are looking for grad school opportunities. They are extremely talented, self-motivated, and pleasant to work with. Please consider them if you have openings!

News

• [Oct. 2022] Two papers accepted to EMNLP and Findings 2022, and I will serve as an on-site volunteer :)
• [Sep. 2022] I will serve as the Poster/Demo Session Chair for Michigan AI Symposium 2022.
• [Aug. 2022] I will be the Graduate Student Instructor for EECS 595 (NLP) in Fall 2022 at Michigan.
• [Aug. 2021] I graduated from SJTU!
• [May. 2021] I graduated from Michigan!
• [Mar. 2021] I will join the family of the Michigan AI as a Ph.D. student this fall. Go Blue!
• [Dec. 2020] I will be the Instructional Aide for EECS 492 (Intro. AI) in Winter 2021 at Michigan.
• [May. 2020] I will be the Teaching Assistant for VE 492 (Intro. AI) and VE 280 (Program. & Intro. Data Struct.) Summer 2020 at SJTU.

Schedule

If you would like to have a random chat with me, please visit my calendly page.

Experience

Education

• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | Sept 2021 - May 2026 (Expected)
  Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, Certificate in Cognitive Science
  Advisor: Joyce Chai
• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | Sept 2019 - May 2021
  B.S.E in Computer Science, Minor in Mathematics (Summa Cum Laude)
  Advisors: Joyce Chai, Qiaozhu Mei, Jie Liu
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai | Sept 2017 - Aug 2021
  B.S.E in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  
• Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin | Jan 2019 - Feb 2019
  Visiting Student
  
• Chengdu Foreign Languages School, Chengdu | Sept 2011 - June 2017
  High School

• More

Selected Projects

* indicates equal contributions.

Publications

Spoken Dialogue for Handling Unexpected Situations in Interactive Autonomous Driving Agents

Ziqiao Ma, Benjamin VanDerPloeg*, Cristian-Paul Bara*, Huang Yidong*, Eui-In Kim, Felix Gervits, Matthew Marge, Joyce Chai

Findings of EMNLP & SereTOD, 2022

[paper] [code] [video] [slides] [poster]

#VisionLanguageNavigation #SituatedDialogue #EmbodiedAI

DANLI: Deliberative Agent for Following Natural Language Instructions

Yichi Zhang, Jianing Yang, Shane Storks, Jiayi Pan, Nikhil Devraj, Ziqiao Ma, Keunwoo Peter Yu, Yuwei Bao, Joyce Chai

EMNLP (Oral), 2022

[paper] [code] [video] [slides]

#InstructionFollowing #NeuroSymbolic #EmbodiedAI

Partition-Based Active Learning for Graph Neural Networks

Jiaqi Ma*, Ziqiao Ma*, Joyce Chai, Qiaozhu Mei

DLG-KDD (Oral), 2022

[paper] [code] [poster]

#ActiveLearning #GraphNeuralNetwork

Game Design

Contracts

[trailer][itch.io][indidb][tigsource]

• A turn-based tactic video game.

Floating

[play online][download]

• A physics-based puzzle video game.

• More

Misc

Mentoring

• Jiayi Pan, B.S. @ UMICH, Ann Arbor, US.
• Yidong (Owen) Huang, B.S. @ UMICH, Ann Arbor, US.
• Eui-In (Elina) Kim, B.S. @ UMICH, Ann Arbor, US.

• Understanding, acquiring and using sensorimotor-grounded language and world knowledge.
• Cognitively motivated human-agent communication in physical environments.
• Machine learning that is (inter)active, data-efficient and continual on (semi-)structured data.

Fun Facts

• I was born and raised up in Chengdu, the home of pandas.
• I am proud of Chengdu Foreign Languages School, my high school, and identify myself as a CFLSer. 成外人永远不会成外人.
• My dream school during high school was The University of Hong Kong (HKU), yet I declined the offer of BSc(QFin) in pursuit of my engineering dream.
• I love literature and drama. I am particularly interested in Shakespeare's plays, ancient Chinese drama and modern Asian literature. Here is one of my essays about Cross-dressed Heroines in Comedies.
• I am a super fan of Nightwish. My favourite album is Imaginaerum.

Friends

• Jimmy Zhang SDE @ Microsoft, Suzhou, China.
• Sway Ye Ph.D. @ SJTU, Shanghai, China.
• Joy Dong Ph.D. @ UMICH, Ann Arbor, US.
• Haoyang Zhang Ph.D. @ UIUC, Champaign, US.
• ...(if you want to get linked just message me 😏)

Mental Support

• Counseling and Support Services @ SJTU
• Resources for Stress and Mental Health @ Michigan.

Get In Touch

You are welcome to drop me a message :)