--- title: "Zilin Zhang — author profile and papers" description: "Zilin Zhang, Zhejiang University: 2 papers on Elamur Research (2018), h-index 12 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who cites them in our library." canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zilin-zhang/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zilin-zhang/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [authors](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/) / Zilin Zhang # Zilin Zhang Zilin Zhang works on text-to-SQL generation and semantic parsing, where a question in natural language must be turned into an executable database query. Their papers here sit where [semantic parsing](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semantic-parsing/) meets [code and programming languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/code-and-programming/). The recurring concern is how well models generalize to databases and tables they never saw during training. The approach combines building evaluation resources with designing neural models. The most cited of these papers is [Spider](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/yu-2018-spider-large-scale-human-labeled/) (2018). Earlier benchmarks either had complex queries over a single small database or covered many tables with only simple queries. Spider responds with a hand-annotated corpus that pairs questions with complex SQL over many multi-table databases, using joins, grouping, nesting and set operations. It also sets up a task in which the test databases are kept apart from the training ones. [TypeSQL](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/yu-2018-typesql-knowledge-based-type-aware/), from the same year, takes up text-to-SQL on WikiSQL. It builds on the sketch-based slot-filling design of SQLNet, splitting prediction across models with shared encoders. It also gives each question token a type, such as a column match, a number or date, or a named entity, to cope with rare words that pretrained embeddings handle poorly. Both papers date from 2018, so neither marks a later shift in direction. Together they show an interest in cross-domain evaluation and in using schema and type knowledge to guide query generation. Zhang is currently at [Zhejiang University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/zhejiang-university/). Earlier bylines include [Yale University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/yale-university/), where the 2018 work appeared, and [Beijing Institute of Technology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/beijing-institute-of-technology/). Frequent co-authors are [Tao Yu](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/tao-yu/), [Dragomir Radev](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dragomir-radev/), [Rui Zhang](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/rui-zhang/) and [Zifan Li](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zifan-li/). Zilin Zhang has 2 papers in our library, in 2018, most of them on [Code & programming languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/code-and-programming/), [Semantic parsing & meaning representation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semantic-parsing/); often with [Dragomir Radev](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dragomir-radev/), [Rui Zhang](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/rui-zhang/), [Tao Yu](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/tao-yu/). 2 papers in our library · 2018 current affiliation [Zhejiang University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/zhejiang-university/) · Hangzhou China [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5101580150) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9179-9043) · [**h-index 12**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5101580150) · [26 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5101580150) · [1,451 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5101580150&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 [2 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zilin-zhang/#papers) · [667 citations in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zilin-zhang/cited-by/) · [⭐ Paper Star rank #1257](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/13/#star-1257) The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart. Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Zilin+Zhang) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Zilin+Zhang) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=Zilin+Zhang) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=Zilin+Zhang) ## Affiliations [🎓**Zhejiang University** Hangzhou · China 2023–2026 · 4 papers*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/zhejiang-university/) · [🎓**Beijing Institute of Technology** Beijing · China 2018–2022 · 9 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/beijing-institute-of-technology/) · [🎓**Yale University** New Haven · United States 2018 · 3 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/yale-university/) · [🎓**Shanxi Agricultural University** Xiaodian · China 2024–2025 · 2 papers](https://ror.org/05e9f5362) · [🎓**Central China Normal University** Wuhan · China 2023–2024 · 2 papers](https://ror.org/03x1jna21) From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. 5 more institutions on single bylines are not listed. ## Topics [Code & programming languages 2](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/code-and-programming/) · [Semantic parsing & meaning representation 2](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semantic-parsing/) ## Works by year ### 2010s [**2018** 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zilin-zhang/year/2018/) ## Papers The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library). 1. **[Spider: A Large-Scale Human-Labeled Dataset for Complex and Cross-Domain Semantic Parsing and Text-to-SQL Task](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/yu-2018-spider-large-scale-human-labeled/)** *(2018 · 1,582 citations)* Earlier text-to-SQL and semantic parsing benchmarks had two weaknesses. Datasets with complex queries, such as ATIS and GeoQuery, are small and use one database for both training and testing, so models can score well by memorizing query templates. Large cross-domain datasets such as WikiSQL contain only simple… 2. **[TypeSQL: Knowledge-Based Type-Aware Neural Text-to-SQL Generation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/yu-2018-typesql-knowledge-based-type-aware/)** *(2018 · 301 citations)* TypeSQL addresses text-to-SQL generation on WikiSQL, where a natural-language question and a table schema must be translated into an SQL query, and the test tables are never seen in training. ## Co-authors here 6 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first. - [Dragomir Radev](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dragomir-radev/) ×2 - [Rui Zhang](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/rui-zhang/) ×2 - [Tao Yu](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/tao-yu/) ×2 - [Zifan Li](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zifan-li/) ×2 - [Irene Li](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/irene-li/) - [Michihiro Yasunaga](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michihiro-yasunaga/) ## Cited by Papers of our library cite their works 667 times (of the 140,884 papers whose bibliographies we read); [41 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/zilin-zhang/cited-by/).