Hiring students · yuz092@ucsd.edu

Join the lab.

I'm hiring students at the School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (人工智能与数据科学学院), University of Science and Technology of China. The specifics on which levels and how many are still being worked out with the department; this page will be updated as those details land. For now, the best step is to write.

Hiring students.

Email yuz092@ucsd.edu with a short statement of interest, your CV, and one link to representative work.

The position

Starting fall 2026, I'll be joining the School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (人工智能与数据科学学院) at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC, 中国科学技术大学), Hefei, as incoming faculty. I'm building a group at the intersection of physics, machine learning, and autonomous research systems, and I want to hear from interested students broadly — undergraduate research, master's, PhD, postdoc.

The exact mix of available positions in the first year depends on department arrangements that are still in motion. Write anyway. If we're a good fit, we'll find the right shape.

What you'd work on

Three threads, with room to mix and to pick what suits you:

  1. Autonomous research — LLM agents that propose hypotheses, run experiments, and write up findings end-to-end. This is the newest and the highest-leverage thread; expect outsized investment here.
  2. Physics for AI — long-range order and collective dynamics as a computational paradigm; memcomputing; neuromorphic devices in novel materials.
  3. AI for physics — large quantum models for many-body problems; graph neural networks for dynamical-systems modelling, prediction, and control.

The most interesting projects sit on the boundaries between these threads — e.g., agents that drive memcomputing experiments, or quantum-state models trained inside an autonomous research loop. We'll find good projects together.

Who I'm looking for

Backgrounds welcome: physics, applied math, computer science, machine learning, anything in between. Strong programming and a taste for open-ended problems matter more than a particular CV. Curiosity beats polish. Comfort working across disciplines and across the human/machine boundary is a plus.

If you've built something you're proud of — a paper, a piece of code, a project that didn't fit into a class — that's the most useful signal.

How to apply

Email yuz092@ucsd.edu with:

  • A short statement of interest — what threads excite you, what you've been working on.
  • Your CV.
  • One link to representative work — code, a paper, a project write-up.
  • (Optional) transcripts.

I'll respond. Formal USTC application channels for PhD admission open later in the cycle; this email is the early-interest contact and the one that matters most.

More details, soon

Specific positions, stipend, formal application timelines, and visiting-student exchanges — details will land here as the lab takes shape. For now, the email above is the best channel.