I am an incoming PhD student at UC Irvine, where I am honored to be advised by Prof. Judy Hoffman. Previously, I obtained my bachelor's degree at UC San Diego (B.S. '26) double-major in Mathematics–Computer Science and Cognitive Science with Specialization in Machine Learning and Neural Computation, where I worked with Prof. Zhiting Hu, Prof. Sarah Creel, and Prof. Jennifer J. Sun.
My research interests include world models, embodied AI, and AI agents, with a broader focus on high-level capabilities of AI.
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University of California, IrvineCS PhD studentSept. 2026 - -
University of California, San DiegoB.S. in Mathematics–Computer Science and Cognitive Science with Specialization in Machine Learning and Neural ComputationSept. 2022 – Dec. 2025
Honors & Awards
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UCSD Triton Research & Experiential Learning Scholarship (TRELS), Spring 20242024
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UCSD Provost Honors (2022–2024)2024
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IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (HKN)2024
News
Selected Publications (view all )
World Reasoning Arena
PAN Team Institute of Foundation Models: Qiyue Gao*, Kun Zhou*, Jiannan Xiang*, Zihan Liu*, Dequan Yang, Junrong Chen, Arif Ahmad, Cong Zeng, Ganesh Bannur, Xinqi Huang, Zheqi Liu, Yi Gu, Yichi Yang, Guangyi Liu, Zhiting Hu, Zhengzhong Liu, Eric Xing (* equal contribution)
World Reasoning Arena
PAN Team Institute of Foundation Models: Qiyue Gao*, Kun Zhou*, Jiannan Xiang*, Zihan Liu*, Dequan Yang, Junrong Chen, Arif Ahmad, Cong Zeng, Ganesh Bannur, Xinqi Huang, Zheqi Liu, Yi Gu, Yichi Yang, Guangyi Liu, Zhiting Hu, Zhengzhong Liu, Eric Xing (* equal contribution)
PAN: A World Model for General, Interactable, and Long-Horizon World Simulation
PAN Team Institute of Foundation Models: Jiannan Xiang, Yi Gu, Zihan Liu, Zeyu Feng, Qiyue Gao, Yiyan Hu, Benhao Huang, Guangyi Liu, Yichi Yang, Kun Zhou, Davit Abrahamyan, Arif Ahmad, Ganesh Bannur, Junrong Chen, Kimi Chen, Mingkai Deng, Ruobing Han, Xinqi Huang, Haoqiang Kang, Zheqi Li, Enze Ma, Hector Ren, Yashowardhan Shinde, Rohan Shingre, Ramsundar Tanikella, Kaiming Tao, Dequan Yang, Xinle Yu, Cong Zeng, Binglin Zhou, Zhengzhong Liu, Zhiting Hu, Eric P. Xing
PAN: A World Model for General, Interactable, and Long-Horizon World Simulation
PAN Team Institute of Foundation Models: Jiannan Xiang, Yi Gu, Zihan Liu, Zeyu Feng, Qiyue Gao, Yiyan Hu, Benhao Huang, Guangyi Liu, Yichi Yang, Kun Zhou, Davit Abrahamyan, Arif Ahmad, Ganesh Bannur, Junrong Chen, Kimi Chen, Mingkai Deng, Ruobing Han, Xinqi Huang, Haoqiang Kang, Zheqi Li, Enze Ma, Hector Ren, Yashowardhan Shinde, Rohan Shingre, Ramsundar Tanikella, Kaiming Tao, Dequan Yang, Xinle Yu, Cong Zeng, Binglin Zhou, Zhengzhong Liu, Zhiting Hu, Eric P. Xing
Whisper automatic speech recognition and humans are similarly sensitive to accents, but use sentence context differently
Junrong Chen, Jan Kwong, Sarah Paull, Sarah Creel
Whisper automatic speech recognition and humans are similarly sensitive to accents, but use sentence context differently
Junrong Chen, Jan Kwong, Sarah Paull, Sarah Creel
Do Vision-Language Models Have an Internal World Model? Towards an Atomic Evaluation
Qiyue Gao*, Xinyu Pi*, Kevin Liu, Junrong Chen, Ruolan Yang, Xinqi Huang, Xinyu Fang, Lu Sun, Gautham Kishore, Bo Ai, Stone Tao, Mengyang Liu, Jiaxi Yang, Chao-Jung Lai, Chuanyang Jin, Jiannan Xiang, Benhao Huang, David Danks, Hao Su, Tianmin Shu, Ziqiao Ma, Lianhui Qin, Zhiting Hu (* equal contribution)
Do Vision-Language Models Have an Internal World Model? Towards an Atomic Evaluation
Qiyue Gao*, Xinyu Pi*, Kevin Liu, Junrong Chen, Ruolan Yang, Xinqi Huang, Xinyu Fang, Lu Sun, Gautham Kishore, Bo Ai, Stone Tao, Mengyang Liu, Jiaxi Yang, Chao-Jung Lai, Chuanyang Jin, Jiannan Xiang, Benhao Huang, David Danks, Hao Su, Tianmin Shu, Ziqiao Ma, Lianhui Qin, Zhiting Hu (* equal contribution)
Whispers of knowledge: ASR vs human performance in child transcription
Sarah Creel, Junrong Chen, Caroline Hall-Sherr, Carly Villongco, Sadrac Santacruzlbarra, Kaitlyn Chou
Whispers of knowledge: ASR vs human performance in child transcription
Sarah Creel, Junrong Chen, Caroline Hall-Sherr, Carly Villongco, Sadrac Santacruzlbarra, Kaitlyn Chou
Accented sentence and word recognition: Humans versus Whisper automatic speech recognition
Junrong Chen, Jan Kwong, Sarah Creel
Accented sentence and word recognition: Humans versus Whisper automatic speech recognition
Junrong Chen, Jan Kwong, Sarah Creel