Portfolio

Zhaodong Kang

Projects

ml2025

Closed Captions Simplifier with Fine-tuned LLM

  • Built and deployed an end-to-end ML system fine-tuning LLMs via LoRA for abstractive closed caption simplification — 34% length reduction, >90% content retention.
  • Integrated Whisper ASR and built a real-time inference pipeline and demo app for latency-aware NLP.
PythonPyTorchLoRAWhisperNLP
systems2025

Distributed File System

  • Designed and implemented a high-performance distributed file system with gRPC and Protocol Buffers, supporting scalable multi-client access with weak consistency.
  • Built an efficient in-memory caching proxy with multi-threading and IPC primitives (semaphores, mutexes).
C++gRPCProtocol BuffersMulti-threadingIPC
web2023

Acronym Search Engine

  • Led an 8-member team to build a scalable acronym search engine covering 30,000+ acronyms with Python, SQLite, and Streamlit.
  • Significantly reduced internal training time and cost for the client organization.
PythonSQLiteStreamlitTeam Lead
ml2022

Semantic Segmentation with PSPNet

  • Developed a deep learning model for semantic segmentation using PSPNet architecture with ResNet backbone.
  • Optimized via dilation and Pyramid Pooling Module (PPM); achieved mIoU of 60.4% on the CamVid dataset.
PythonPyTorchPSPNetComputer VisionDeep Learning
web2022
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Restaurant Supply Express

  • Collaborated with a team of 4 to design an EERD, create the physical DB schema, and implement views and stored procedures in MySQL.
  • Implemented the backend with MyBatis, POJO, and REST API for a full-stack web application.
JavaMySQLMyBatisREST API
ml2022
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Facial Emotion Recognition

  • Built a machine learning pipeline for real-time facial emotion classification.
  • Evaluated multiple supervised and unsupervised approaches on standard benchmark datasets.
PythonMachine LearningComputer VisionScikit-learn
ml2022

Scene Recognition

  • Implemented a scene recognition system using classical and deep learning computer vision techniques including SIFT features and RANSAC.
PythonComputer VisionSIFTRANSAC
ml2022

Convolution & Image Processing

  • Implemented convolution operations and image processing algorithms from scratch, exploring filtering, edge detection, and hybrid images.
PythonNumPyComputer VisionSignal Processing
web2021

HackGT 8 — Hackathon Project

  • Built a project during the HackGT 8 hackathon at Georgia Tech.
HackathonGeorgia Tech