About me

I am currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering in Tsinghua University. My research explores the interdisciplinary realms of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Social Computing and Urban Science, aiming to develop scientific methods and algorithmic tools to address the long-standing puzzles in the complex networks arising from human dynamics and social interactions. Recently, I am particularly interested in the emergence of role-playing and commonsense reasoning capabilities in Large Language Models (LLMs). My latest research focuses on creating autonomous LLM agents, which is capable of learning from the interactions with environment, simulating realistic human behavior, and revealing the collective dynamics of societies.

Before my current position, I was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago. I obtained my Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2020.

Prospective Students:

Our lab has several open research positions for prospective graduate students (Ph.D./Master programs) and undergraduate research interns. We are looking for self-motivated students to work together on various exciting data science projects. If you are interested, please drop me an email with your CV.

Recent News

• [New!] - We release a preprint paper about the efficient LLM reasoning framework, DefInt (short for Default-Interventionist), which aims to exploit the synergistic effect between large and smaller language models.
• [New!] We release a preprint paper about leveraging the reasoning power of LLM to generate realistic human mobility data.
• [New!] We release a preprint paper about designing LLM agents for meta-structures discovery in heterogeneous informatoin network.
• [New!] We release a preprint paper about developing LLM agents in simulated urban enviornment.
• [New!] We release a survey paper about agent-based modeling and simulation with large language model-empowered agents.
• [01/2024] - New paper published on Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications: Counterfactual mobility network embedding reveals prevalent accessibility gaps in US cities.
• [08/2023] - We are organizing the first Research Summit of Urban Science.
• [04/2023] - I joined EE Department @ Tsinghua University as an Assistant Professor.
• [08/2022] - New paper published on Nature Human Behaviour: Strategic COVID-19 vaccine distribution can simultaneously elevate social utility and equity.
• [06/2022] - New paper published on PNAS: Flat teams drive scientific innovation.
• [12/2021] - New paper published on Nature Computational Science: Emergence of urban growth patterns from human mobility behavior.