Lichen Li


Welcome to my homepage!

Hi! I am a final-year undergraduate at Yuanpei College, Peking University, majoring in Data Science with a minor in Philosophy.

My research is driven by a philosophical curiosity rooted in epistemology, about how large models integrate perception and language to gain knowledge. I focus on Multimodal AI, AI Reasoning and embodied AI, with a interest in building more intelligent, efficient and interpretable AI systems. My long-term goal is to develop AI that not only advance technical capabilities but also enhance access to quality knowledge and promote equity for underserved communities.

I am looking for Ph.D. opportunities starting in Fall 2026.

Research Experience

Reward Hacking Monitoring in Reasoning LLMs | UCLA Jul 2025 - Present
Advisors: Prof. Cho-Jui Hsieh & Prof. Tianyi Zhou (UMD)
(Ongoing; planned submission to ICML 2026)

Visual Token Pruning in Multimodal LLMs | PKU Mar 2025 - Jun 2025
Advisor: Prof. Shanghang Zhang
(NeurIPS 2025) Beyond Attention or Similarity: Maximizing Conditional Diversity for Token Pruning in MLLMs

Vertical Federated Learning under Privacy Constraints | JHU Jun 2024 - Aug 2024
Advisor: Prof. Yinzhi Cao

Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning for Vision Transformers | PKU Mar 2024 - Jun 2024
Advisor: Prof. Shanghang Zhang

Education

Peking University 2021 - 2026 (Expected)
B.S. in Data Science and Big Data Technology, Minor in Philosophy
Honors: PKU Merit Student (2025)
Leadership: PKU Demonstration Class (2023, Class Monitor)

The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China 2018 - 2021
High School

The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China 2015 - 2018
Middle School

A Bit More About Me :)

  • mbti ♒️: E/INTJ
  • What I enjoy🌟: Philosophy, Reading, Theater, Photography📷, Running, Cycling, Singing.
  • Some Books📚 & Plays🎭 I love:
    • The Republic (by Plato)
    • Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (by Rousseau)
    • Zhuangzi
    • Rhinoceros in Love 🦏
    • Man of La Mancha (musical)