Zhiqin (Brian) Yang
PhD student at HKUST, Clear Water Bay.
LLM ReasoningAgentic Models
Collaborative LearningTrustworthy ML
I am a PhD student at HKUST, supervised by Prof. Yike Guo and Prof. Wei Xue. I also work closely with Prof. Bo Han and Prof. Yonggang Zhang at the TMLR group, HKBU.
Prior to this, I earned my M.S. from Beihang University (BUAA), advised by Prof. Hao Peng, and completed my B.S. at Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NJUST), where I spent four enriching years.
My research revolves around two intertwined questions on the path toward AGI: what a machine needs to learn to get there, and how a machine should learn it. Everything I work on — LLM reasoning, agentic models, and collaborative learning — is organized around these two questions.
Two questions drive everything I do, both on the path toward AGI: what a machine needs to learn to get there, and how it should learn it. The directions below are how I pursue them.
LLM Reasoning & Alignment
Preference alignment (rethinking DPO vs. RLHF), reasoning-data selection for RL, and linguistic principles for foundation models.
DPO / RLHFRL Post-trainingReasoning
Agentic Models & Memory
Human-symbiotic agent networks and on-the-fly agent memory optimization.
AgentsMemoryGovernance
Collaborative Learning
Robust learning under data heterogeneity, label deficiency, and noisy clients — with applications in privacy-preserving healthcare.
HeterogeneityNoisy ClientsPrivacy
Latest updates, newest first.
Framed on the walls by topic — click any paper for its abstract & links. Full list on Scholar ↗
Away from research —
- 🏀 Basketball & a devoted fan of Kobe Bryant.
- 🎧 Live music — hip-hop & R&B, with Nous Underground (XAC) a favorite.
- 📖 Chinese history, especially the Ming Dynasty.
Happy to talk about any of these — or potential collaborations.
Walked through the study? Leave a note by the sea — no account needed.
Please feel free to reach out about collaborations or shared passions.