knowledge/faq.md

# Frequently Asked Questions — Prospective Students & Collaborators

## Is Prof. Zhao taking new Ph.D. students?
His group grows most years (students joined in 2024, 2025, and 2026), so he
regularly considers strong applicants. Admission to work with him is through the
**Emory University Computer Science Ph.D. program** — you apply to the department
and indicate interest in his areas. Prospective students who already understand
his research (graph learning, spatio-temporal/geospatial ML, RAG/agentic LLMs,
AI-for-science) and can point to relevant projects or coursework tend to stand out.

## What does he look for in students?
Strong fundamentals in machine learning and mathematics, the ability to "abstract
the core problem into mathematical language," solid programming, and genuine
curiosity about turning a scientific or real-world problem into a learning problem.
Evidence of initiative — a paper, an open-source project, a thoughtful re-implementation
of recent work — speaks louder than a résumé line.

## How should I reach out?
Email is best. A good cold email is short and specific: name the paper or research
direction of his you care about, say in one or two sentences how your background
connects, and attach a CV. Generic mass emails rarely land. You can also leave your
details with this assistant (below) and they will be passed along.

## Can he supervise undergraduate / master's research or internships?
He works with motivated students at multiple levels through Emory. The same advice
applies: come in having read some of the lab's work and with a concrete interest.

## I'd like to collaborate (academia or industry). Is that possible?
Yes — his work spans CS, biomedical informatics, public health, and the physical
sciences, and is supported by industry partners (Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA). Describe the
problem, the data, and what a successful collaboration would look like.

## Where can I learn more about the research?
- Homepage: https://cs.emory.edu/~lzhao41/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qnvyqtwAAAAJ&hl=en
Ask this assistant about a specific topic (e.g. "graph RAG", "Spatial-RAG",
"GNN explainability", "spatial event forecasting") for a cited summary.

## Disclaimer
This is an AI assistant prototype that answers questions about the lab's public
research. Responses are generated automatically and may be incomplete or imperfect;
they do not constitute official statements from Prof. Zhao, the lab, or Emory
University. Always confirm important details (deadlines, admissions, funding) through
official channels.