
Zhengyuan (Dora) Dong
Ph.D. Student, Data Systems Group Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo
My Research Interests: Data Lake, Model Lake, Multi-agent System, AI for Science
News
- 2024 Sep. Released BioMANIA v2 preprint manuscript on bioRxiv
- 2024 Jul. Presented research poster at ISMB 2024 (International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology)
Publications
- [Preprint] PaperLazyVLM: Neuro-Symbolic Approach to Video Analytics
- [Preprint] GithubPaperDockerPoster ISMBPoster ICIBMBioMANIA: Simplifying bioinformatics data analysis through conversation
Service
- Reviewer, ACL ARR (2025 - present)
- Reviewer, ACL/ICML workshop (2025 - present)
Open Source Projects

LazyVLM
Status: Completed ✅ at Mar 2025. To Be Released
LazyVLM is a neuro-symbolic video analytics system that combines the flexibility of Vision Language Models (VLMs) with the efficiency of symbolic methods. It allows users to query open-domain video data at scale using a semi-structured text interface, decomposing complex video queries into efficient operations for robust and scalable analytics.

BioMANIA
Status: Completed ✅ at Oct 2023. Updated at Oct 2024
An AI-driven chatbot platform that simplifies bioinformatics data analysis through conversation. Features include front-end and back-end components, extensive data setup, model fine-tuning, and deployment solutions across Docker, Railway, and terminal CLI.

DocLocal
Status: Complete ✅ at Jun 2023
A GUI application that downloads and manages GitHub repository README files locally while offering integrated web search functionality through popular search engines. The tool streamlines documentation access by automatically fetching README files from repositories and displaying them in a user-friendly interface for offline browsing.
Teaching
- Teaching Assistant, CS 348 Introduction to Database Systems (S24, S25)
- Teaching Assistant, CS 136 Elementary Algorithm Design and Data Abstraction (W24, F24, W25)
Honors
- Prov-Doc Entrance Award, University of Waterloo, 2024
- International Doctoral Student Award (IDSA), University of Waterloo, 2024