Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science University at Albany, State University of New York Ph.D. in Computer Science, UC Santa Barbara, 2023 AISTATS-2025 Area Chair / IEEE-TNNLS Associate Editor / Private Pilot Work: cliu24 AT albany.edu Research: chongliu.cs AT gmail.com Office: UAB 426

[Biography] [Publications] [Talks] [Services] [Blogs] [Explorations]

Open PhD Positions

• I'm recruiting two Ph.D. students starting Fall 2025. Here is the full advertisement.

• Feel free to drop me an email with your research interests, CV, transcript, and a representative writing sample (paper/preprint if any). However, due to the large volumes of inquiry emails, I may not be able to reply to all. I apologize in advance.

Research Interests

• Machine Learning: Bayesian optimization, bandit algorithms, and active learning.

• AI for Science: experimental design, drug discovery, and materials science.

Teaching

• Fall 2024: CSI 436/536 Machine Learning [Syllabus]

News

• Nov. 2024: Happy to release a paper preprint "Constrained Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimization through Optimistic Constraints Estimation"! Many drug discovery problems are focusing on hitting multiple target performance criteria of a certain drug. In this paper, we model it as the constrained MOBO problem and solve it via optimistic constraints estimation.

• Oct. 2024: I'm co-organizing the "Generative AI for Decision Making" session with Prof. Shixiang (Woody) Zhu at INFROMS-2024! Also, I'll give an invited talk at the "Bayesian optimization" session. Happy to meet you in Seattle!

• Oct. 2024: Happy to release a review preprint "Binding Affinity Prediction: From Conventional to Machine Learning-Based Approaches"!

• Sep. 2024: Happy to be invited as an Area Chair of AISTATS-2025!

• Aug. 2024: Hello Albany, New York! I've moved from Chicago to Albany to start my faculty career!

• Jun. 2024: Wrote a blog on our WACV-2023 paper at Data Science Institute.

• May 2024: Invited to give a lighitning talk about our recent ICLR-2024 paper "Communication-Efficient Federated Non-Linear Bandit Optimization" at the Midwest Machine Learning Symposium (MMLS-2024)! Happy to meet you in Minneapolis!

• Apr. 2024: Honored to be appointed as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (IEEE-TNNLS).

• Mar. 2024: Invited to review for TMLR.

• Feb. 2024: Invited to speak at the 2024 Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA-2024). Happy to meet you in San Diego!

• Jan. 2024: Invited to review for DMLR, ICML-2024 Workshop Proposals, ISMB-2024 and ICML-2024.

• Jan. 2024: Happy new year! Paper "Communication-Efficient Federated Non-Linear Bandit Optimization" is accepted by ICLR-2024! In this paper, we systematically study the federated non-linear bandit optimization problem and proves both cumulative regret and communication cost bounds. Congrats to Chuanhao and Yu-Xiang!

• Dec. 2023: I'm attending NeurIPS-2023 and organizing the workshop on New Frontiers of AI for Drug Discovery and Development (AI4D3-2023). Happy to meet you in New Orleans!

• Nov. 2023: Invited to speak at UAlbany CS (Mon Nov 13), RPI ECSE (Tue Nov 14), UAlbany Math (Tue Nov 14), UCSB Stats (Mon Nov 27), and TTIC (Wed Nov 29). Happy to meet you in Albany, Troy, Santa Barbara, and Chicago!

• Nov. 2023: I'm attending the NITMB Kickoff Workshop. Happy to meet you in Chicago!

• Oct. 2023: I'm attending the INFORMS-2023. Happy to meet you in Phoenix!