Honours/Awards

1. 2027 IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine Outstanding Paper Award for the paper titled "Genetic Programming and Reinforcement Learning on Learning Heuristics for Dynamic Scheduling: A Preliminary Comparison" (Prize: $1000 USD)
2. Based on top 500 NZ researchers provided by Scholarly Output in New Zealand over the period 2022 to 2026 (RSNZ provided), Fangfang Zhang is ranked in the 200th.
3. Academic New Zealand & Overseas Conference Leave Award, 2026 ($4,632 NZD)
4. Early Career Research Excellence Award, Victoria University of Wellington, 2025 ($10,000 NZD)
5. Top 2% Scientists 2025, Stanford/Elsevier's Top 2% Scientists list
6. Outstanding Member Recruitment Performance 2025 in the New Zealand Central Section, recognised by IEEE Member recruitment Recovery Committee
7. IEEE CIS Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award, 2025 (Prize: $1000 USD)
8. Fangfang Zhang was invited to join an interview of “Meet a CIS Member” by IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. here
9. The work from Fangfang Zhang, et.al of “Health Prediction for King Salmon via Evolutionary Machine Learning with Genetic Programming” were accepted by Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. This work has been recognised and posted by Australian Society for Fish Biology, i.e., a professional organisation of fish and fisheries researchers, via linkedin here
10. Best Poster Award Runner-up, Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AJCAI), 2023
11. Humies SILVER Award, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), 2023 (Prize: $2000 USD)
12. Best Paper Award, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), 2023
13. ACM SIGEVO Best Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention, 2022 (Prize: $1000 USD)
14. Best Paper Award, European Conference on Genetic Programming (EuroGP), 2022
15. Victorias Award for Research Excellence, 2021 (Prize: $1500 NZD)
16. Popular Paper Recognition (2 papers), IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 2021 (top 50 most frequently accessed papers in the journal)
17. Popular Paper Recognition (1 paper), IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, 2021 (top 50 most frequently accessed papers in the journal)
18. Best Paper Runner-Up Award, Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2018 (Prize: $200 NZD)
19. Recognition of Organising the IEEE Postgraduate Symposium, IEEE New Zealand Central Section, 2020
20. Faculty Strategic Research Grant ($3000 NZD), Victoria University of Wellington, 2019
21. Recognition of Presentation in IEEE Postgraduate Symposium, IEEE New Zealand Central Section, 2019
22. PGSA Academic Conference Grant ($500 NZD), Victoria University of Wellington, 2019
23. GECCO Student Travel Grant ($700 USD), Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), 2019
24. Recognition of Presentation in IEEE Postgraduate Symposium, IEEE New Zealand Central Section, 2018
25. Faculty Strategic Research Grant ($3000 NZD), Victoria University of Wellington, 2018
26. Oversea PhD scholarship, China Scholarship Council (CSC), 2017-2021
27. Distinguished Graduate of Shenzhen University (M.Sc.), 2017
28. National Scholarship for Postgraduate Students, 2016 (It is currently the highest-level scholarship for the master students in China)
29. Shenzhen University Tecent Founder Scholarship, Tecent, 2015 (only two in the college of management)
30. First Prize of Challenging Cup for Students Extracurricular Academic & Scientific Technology Competition (as a leader), Shenzhen University, 2016
31. Third Prize of the 4th Li Yan Management sub-forum Competition, Shenzhen University, 2016
32. Distinguished Graduate of Shenzhen University, 2014
33. Bronze Award of China (Ningbo) College Students Entrepreneurship Competition, South China (Shenzhen) Division, 2016
34. Outstanding Volunteer of Shenzhen Public Welfare Undertakings, 2016
35. Outstanding Worker of S.F. Express Company as Intern, 2014
36. Outstanding Youth Volunteer of the 26th Summer Universiade Shenzhen Event, 2011
37. Certificate of Completion for Professional Development Offered by Oracle Academy, 2011