Liu

Liu Yang (杨鎏)
Research Scientist
Google DeepMind
yang.liu.current@gmail.com

About Me

I am a Research Scientist at Google DeepMind. I earned my Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, advised by Prof. Robert D. Nowak, Prof. Dimitris Papailiopoulos, and Prof. Kangwook Lee. My research focuses on in-context learning in transformers and latent thinking. During my Ph.D., I interned on the Meta Ads Ranking team (2023, 2024) and at Google Research (summer 2025). Previously, I earned my B.E. in Computer Science from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2020.

Selected Publications and Preprints

Task Vectors in In-Context Learning: Emergence, Formation, and Benefits
Liu Yang, Ziqian Lin, Kangwook Lee, Dimitris Papailiopoulos, Robert D. Nowak
COLM'25 | summary
Looped Transformers are Better at Learning Learning Algorithms
Liu Yang, Kangwook Lee, Robert D. Nowak, Dimitris Papailiopoulos
ICLR'24 | code | 45-Minute Talk | summary
Unifying Generative and Dense Retrieval for Sequential Recommendation
Liu Yang, Fabian Paischer, Kaveh Hassani, Jiacheng Li, Shuai Shao, Zhang Gabriel Li, Yun He, Xue Feng, Nima Noorshams, Sem Park, Bo Long, Robert D Nowak, Xiaoli Gao, Hamid Eghbalzadeh
TMLR'25 | summary

Service

Conference Reviewer ICML (2022, 2024, 2025, 2026), Neurips (2024), ICLR (2024, 2025)
Student Organizer of SILO, MLOPT seminar
Organizer of Latent and Implicit Thinking workshop at ICLR 2026

Hobbies

I enjoy photography in my leisure time. You can find a collection of selected photos I took in Flickr. Also, I was proud to be a member of the women's rowing team in my undergrad university. Try to find me in this photo, where our w8+ just crossed the finish line in the National College Rowing Championships (2018).