Northwestern University · IEMS
Hi, I’m Youheng.
I’m a second-year PhD candidate in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University, advised by Prof. Minshuo Chen and Prof. Yiping Lu (now at the Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University).
My research interests lie in statistical learning theory and applied probability. I like to study machine learning through the lens of function spaces, drawing on tools from analysis, information theory, and probability.
Before Northwestern, I worked with Prof. Nan Jiang in Computer Science at UIUC starting in summer 2024, and Prof. Yuheng Bu in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida starting in summer 2023. I received my B.Eng. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in June 2025.
Research
My current and developing interests include:
- Information theory and high-dimensional statistics
- Functional analysis, manifolds, and PDEs
- Random matrices
- Large deviations
- Stochastic simulation
- General machine learning theory
- Automatic theorem formalization and proving
- Philosophy of mathematics
I think “infinity” is one of the best inventions in mathematics. I’m especially drawn to continuous and infinite-dimensional settings for their rich structure and the analytical tools they offer.
I also have experience in computer graphics and the lattice Boltzmann method.
Publications
Preprints and conference papers. Browse by publication type →
High-Dimensional Interpolators Can Be Fragile: Heavy Tails and High-Dimensional Large Deviations
An AI-Assisted Solution to the Signed BAR Conjecture: Uniqueness in the Harrison–Reiman Class and a Completely-𝒮 Class Obstruction
A Covering Framework for Offline POMDPs Learning using Belief Space Metric
On the Power of (Approximate) Reward Models for Inference-Time Scaling: Sequential Monte Carlo and Beyond
Information-theoretic Analysis of the Gibbs Algorithm: An Individual Sample Approach
Awards
- NeurIPS Top ReviewerTop 8% of reviewers.
- Arthur P. Hurter AwardBest first-year PhD student in IEMS.
- ICML Gold ReviewerTop 25% of reviewers.
Service
I serve as a reviewer for:
- Conferences
- AAAI · AISTATS · ICLR · ICML · NeurIPS
- Journals
- JML · MOR
Beyond research
Something more about me (due to optimization error, these are subject to change):
- My favorite director is Ikuhara Kunihiko (幾原 邦彦)
- My favorite band is Sōtaisei Riron (相対性理論)
- My favorite voice-actress unit is Trysail
- My favorite music producer/composer is Yuki Kajiura (梶浦 由記), including her projects FictionJunction and Kalafina.
- I enjoy (arcade) rhythm games.