Statistics Ph.D. student Ruiqi Zhang has been awarded a fellowship for the 2025-26 academic year from Citadel Securities. A gold-level partner with Berkeley Statistics' Industry Alliance Program, Citadel is one of the world's leading securities firms. Citadel's CEO is Peng Zhao, a 2006 graduate of Berkeley Statistics, advised by Distinguished Professor Bin Yu. 

Zhang's research primarily focuses on the theory and applications of modern Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and large language models. Peter L. Bartlett and Song Mei advise Zhang.