Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science University at Albany, State University of New York UAB 426, Albany, NY 12222 cliu24 AT albany.edu PhD in Computer Science, UC Santa Barbara ICML'25 AISTATS'25 Area Chair / IEEE-TNNLS Associate Editor / Private Pilot

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

Open Positions

• [CS PhD Fall 2025] I'm recruiting two Ph.D. students starting Fall 2025. Click here to read 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.

• [Remote Intern] I occasionally recruit remote interns to do some research projects, especially in summer. Feel free to drop me an email if you are interested!

Research Interests

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

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

Teaching

• Spring 2025: CSI 436/536 Machine Learning

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

News

• Dec. 2024: Invited to serve as an Area Chair of ICML-2025 conference!

• Dec. 2024: Paper "Black-Box Optimization with Implicit Constraints for Public Policy" is accepted by AAAI-2025 AI for Social Impact Track! In this paper, we apply Bayesian optimization help police departments make decisions on police districting. Congrats to coauthors Wenqian Xing (Stanford), Jungho Lee (CMU), and Shixiang Zhu (CMU)!

• 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: Invited to serve as an Area Chair of AISTATS-2025 conference!

• Oct. 2024: I'm co-organizing the "Generative AI for Decision Making" session with Prof. Shixiang 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"!

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