Shanshi Mao
THE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD, IN VARIOUS WAYS; THE POINT IS TO CHANGE IT.
It’s nice to see you here. My name is Shanshi, and I am currently a Master’s student at Victoria University of Wellington.
I graduated from one of the best high schools in Chengdu, China. However, I was never fond of exam-oriented education, so I didn’t study particularly hard during that time. Fortunately, I was admitted to Chengdu University of Technology, where I majored in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). During my undergraduate years, I made some wonderful friends—many of whom are now associate professors at top universities in China—while I am still on the journey of seeking a PhD position. My GPA was bad (average 77/100), as I was less engaged with the coursework. Instead, I spent much of my time traveling across Sichuan Province. Those experiences left me deeply touched: I was amazed by the stunning landscapes and kind people, but also struck by the struggles of those living in poverty. From then on, the seed of an idea began to take root in my mind.
After graduation, I started my career as a developer and later transitioned into a DevOps engineer. In 2025, I will complete my Master’s degree at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, with an average grade of A-. My supervisor, Dr. Fangfang Zhang, has been a tremendous source of support. She is one of the most independent and inspiring women I have ever met, and our relationship feels more like a friendship than a traditional student–supervisor bond. My Master’s thesis focuses on leveraging Transformers to extract information from tree-structured data, a project that holds great personal significance thanks to her guidance.
In terms of research interests, I am particularly drawn to neural networks, especially reinforcement learning, and I am curious about their applications in agriculture. I believe AI technologies should not only benefit a select few, but rather bring fairness, justice, and positive impact to everyone—especially those in disadvantaged communities.
The profile photo beside this biography depicts Don Quixote fighting the windmills, which I interpret as a symbol of the courage of idealism. It reflects my own philosophy:
“To know it cannot be done, yet to do it—who else but me?” (知其不可而为之者，其于我乎？)