Yihao Xue

I am a final-year PhD candidate in the Computer Science Department at UCLA, advised by Professor Baharan Mirzasoleiman. Prior to this, I completed my undergraduate studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

My research focuses on understanding and improving the reliability of machine learning systems, specifically examining whether models behave as intended under imperfect conditions (e.g., imperfect supervision and imperfect training environments). I study these challenges across different training paradigms, including supervised learning, self-supervised learning, and language models.

I am a recipient of the OpenAI Superalignment Grant.

Portrait of Yihao Xue
Me and Brie

Publications

Preprints

Experience

Student Researcher, Google

Jun. 2025 - Jan. 2026

With Vincent Cohen-Addad. Designing optimal test-time scaling strategies to improve Gemini's reasoning.

Research Intern, Cisco

Jun. 2022 - Sep. 2022

With Ali Payani. Worked on few-shot domain adaptation.

More About Me

My last name is pronounced [sh EW eh]. I enjoy playing tennis and ping-pong, watching TV shows, and spending time relaxing.

I also listen to a lot of classical music - here's a glimpse of my current top 6 favorite musicians: see the list.

Feel free to reach out if you share similar interests (or want to talk research).