Yuxuan Zhang
Hi there! I'm Yuxuan Zhang, a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, advised by Prof. Kelsey Allen. I'm also affiliated with the Vector Institute. My research interests span:
My recent work studies agentic AI systems that can be evaluated, trained, and improved in realistic environments: ClawBench for live web-agent evaluation, RewardHarness for self-evolving agentic post-training, and VidGround for grounded video understanding.
I'm open to collaborations and always excited to chat about research ideas. Feel free to reach out at
reacher [at] cs.ubc.ca ( WeChat works too).
I am actively looking for research internships. Please reach out if my background looks like a great fit for your organization.
Let's grab a coffee and have a chat!
Research Highlights
Can AI Agents Complete Everyday Online Tasks?
ClawBench evaluates AI agents on 153 real-world tasks across 144 live platforms — from booking appointments to filing job applications. Unlike sandboxed benchmarks, ClawBench runs on production websites, intercepting only the final submission to keep evaluation safe without losing real-world complexity.
Project page arXivWatch Before You Answer
Language models can answer video questions using text priors alone, without truly watching the video. We identify and filter such spurious training samples, producing a cleaner dataset that teaches models to genuinely ground their answers in visual content.
Project page arXivRewardHarness: Self-Evolving Agentic Post-Training
Evaluating instruction-guided image edits requires rewards that capture subtle human preferences — yet existing reward models rely on hundreds of thousands of annotations. RewardHarness reframes reward modeling as context evolution: from only 100 preference demonstrations it iteratively evolves a library of tools and skills, surpassing GPT-5 by 5.3 points on image-editing evaluation benchmarks while using just 0.05% of the EditReward data.
Project page arXiv-
University of British ColumbiaPhD in Computer ScienceJan. 2025 - Present
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University of TorontoMSc in Applied ComputingSept. 2022 - June 2024 -
Peking UniversityBachelor in EconomicsSept. 2019 - June 2022
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SOTIData ScientistJan. 2024 - Dec. 2024Research InternMay 2023 - Dec. 2023
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2026 Compute Transparency Champion Award, CVPR 2026
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2025 President's Academic Excellence Award
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2023 Mitacs Accelerate Fellowship ($30,000)
News
Selected Publications (view all )
2026 9 papers
RewardHarness: Self-Evolving Agentic Post-Training
Yuxuan Zhang, Penghui Du, Bo Li, Cong Wei, Junwen Miao, Huaisong Zhang, Songcheng Cai, Yubo Wang, Dongfu Jiang, Yuyu Zhang, Ping Nie, Wenhu Chen, Changqian Yu, Kelsey R. Allen
Conference on Language Modeling (COLM) 2026
RewardHarness: Self-Evolving Agentic Post-Training
Yuxuan Zhang, Penghui Du, Bo Li, Cong Wei, Junwen Miao, Huaisong Zhang, Songcheng Cai, Yubo Wang, Dongfu Jiang, Yuyu Zhang, Ping Nie, Wenhu Chen, Changqian Yu, Kelsey R. Allen
Conference on Language Modeling (COLM) 2026
ClawBench: Can AI Agents Complete Everyday Online Tasks?
Yuxuan Zhang, Yubo Wang, Yipeng Zhu, Penghui Du, Junwen Miao, Xuan Lu, Wendong Xu, Yunzhuo Hao, Songcheng Cai, Xiaochen Wang, Huaisong Zhang, Xian Wu, Yi Lu, Minyi Lei, Kai Zou, Huifeng Yin, Ping Nie, Liang Chen, Dongfu Jiang, Wenhu Chen, Kelsey R. Allen
Under Review
ClawBench: Can AI Agents Complete Everyday Online Tasks?
Yuxuan Zhang, Yubo Wang, Yipeng Zhu, Penghui Du, Junwen Miao, Xuan Lu, Wendong Xu, Yunzhuo Hao, Songcheng Cai, Xiaochen Wang, Huaisong Zhang, Xian Wu, Yi Lu, Minyi Lei, Kai Zou, Huifeng Yin, Ping Nie, Liang Chen, Dongfu Jiang, Wenhu Chen, Kelsey R. Allen
Under Review
Watch Before You Answer: Learning from Visually Grounded Post-Training
Yuxuan Zhang, EunJeong Hwang, Huaisong Zhang, Penghui Du, Yiming Jia, Dongfu Jiang, Xuan He, Shenhui Zhang, Ping Nie, Peter West, Kelsey R. Allen
Under Review
Watch Before You Answer: Learning from Visually Grounded Post-Training
Yuxuan Zhang, EunJeong Hwang, Huaisong Zhang, Penghui Du, Yiming Jia, Dongfu Jiang, Xuan He, Shenhui Zhang, Ping Nie, Peter West, Kelsey R. Allen
Under Review
Function-Aware Fill-in-the-Middle as Mid-Training for Coding Agent Foundation Models
Yubo Wang, Jiarong Liang, Yuxuan Zhang, Xuye Liu, Cong Wei, Yuyu Zhang, Ping Nie, Wenhu Chen
Under Review
Function-Aware Fill-in-the-Middle as Mid-Training for Coding Agent Foundation Models
Yubo Wang, Jiarong Liang, Yuxuan Zhang, Xuye Liu, Cong Wei, Yuyu Zhang, Ping Nie, Wenhu Chen
Under Review
Learning from the Self-future: On-policy Self-distillation for dLLMs
Yifu Luo, Zeyu Chen, Haoyu Wang, Xinhao Hu, Yuxuan Zhang, Zhizhou Sha, Shiwei Liu
Under Review
Learning from the Self-future: On-policy Self-distillation for dLLMs
Yifu Luo, Zeyu Chen, Haoyu Wang, Xinhao Hu, Yuxuan Zhang, Zhizhou Sha, Shiwei Liu
Under Review
CompRank: Efficient LLM Reranking via Token-Level Compression and Decoding-Free Scoring
Xuan Lu, Haohang Huang, Yingqi Fan, Junlong Tong, Yuxuan Zhang, Ping Nie, Rui Meng, Xiaoyu Shen
Under Review
CompRank: Efficient LLM Reranking via Token-Level Compression and Decoding-Free Scoring
Xuan Lu, Haohang Huang, Yingqi Fan, Junlong Tong, Yuxuan Zhang, Ping Nie, Rui Meng, Xiaoyu Shen
Under Review
OpenSkill: Open-World Self-Evolution for LLM Agents
Zhiling Yan, Dingjie Song, Hanrong Zhang, Wei Liang, Yuxuan Zhang, Yutong Dai, Lifang He, Philip S. Yu, Ran Xu, Xiang Li, Lichao Sun
Under Review
OpenSkill: Open-World Self-Evolution for LLM Agents
Zhiling Yan, Dingjie Song, Hanrong Zhang, Wei Liang, Yuxuan Zhang, Yutong Dai, Lifang He, Philip S. Yu, Ran Xu, Xiang Li, Lichao Sun
Under Review
Where, What, Why, and Importance: Structured Defect Grounding for Text-to-Image Feedback
Huaisong Zhang, Hao Yu, Yuxuan Zhang, Jiahe Wang, Xinrui Chen, Haoxiang Cao, Feng Lu, Wendong Zhang, Changqian Yu, Chun Yuan
Under Review
Where, What, Why, and Importance: Structured Defect Grounding for Text-to-Image Feedback
Huaisong Zhang, Hao Yu, Yuxuan Zhang, Jiahe Wang, Xinrui Chen, Haoxiang Cao, Feng Lu, Wendong Zhang, Changqian Yu, Chun Yuan
Under Review
MIRA: Mid-training Rubric Anchoring for Source-Aware Data Selection
Haowen Wang, Yaxin Du, Jian Yang, Jiajun Wu, Shukai Liu, Yuxuan Zhang, Pingjie Wang, Siheng Chen, Tuney Zheng, Ming Zhou, Xianglong Liu, Bryan Dai
Under Review
MIRA: Mid-training Rubric Anchoring for Source-Aware Data Selection
Haowen Wang, Yaxin Du, Jian Yang, Jiajun Wu, Shukai Liu, Yuxuan Zhang, Pingjie Wang, Siheng Chen, Tuney Zheng, Ming Zhou, Xianglong Liu, Bryan Dai
Under Review
2025 8 papers
Dr. Bench: A Multidimensional Evaluation for Deep Research Agents, from Answers to Reports
Yang Yao, Yixu Wang, Yuxuan Zhang, Yi Lu, Tianle Gu, Lingyu Li, Dingyi Zhao, Keming Wu, Haozhe Wang, Ping Nie, Yan Teng, Yingchun Wang
Under Review
Dr. Bench: A Multidimensional Evaluation for Deep Research Agents, from Answers to Reports
Yang Yao, Yixu Wang, Yuxuan Zhang, Yi Lu, Tianle Gu, Lingyu Li, Dingyi Zhao, Keming Wu, Haozhe Wang, Ping Nie, Yan Teng, Yingchun Wang
Under Review
ScholarCopilot: Training Large Language Models for Academic Writing with Accurate Citations
Yubo Wang, Xueguang Ma, Ping Nie, Huaye Zeng, Zhiheng Lyu, Yuxuan Zhang, Benjamin Schneider, Yi Lu, Xiang Yue, Wenhu Chen
Conference on Language Modeling (COLM) 2025
ScholarCopilot: Training Large Language Models for Academic Writing with Accurate Citations
Yubo Wang, Xueguang Ma, Ping Nie, Huaye Zeng, Zhiheng Lyu, Yuxuan Zhang, Benjamin Schneider, Yi Lu, Xiang Yue, Wenhu Chen
Conference on Language Modeling (COLM) 2025
Retri3D: 3D Neural Graphics Representation Retrieval
Yushi Guan, Daniel Kwan, Jean Sebastien Dandurand, Xi Yan, Ruofan Liang, Yuxuan Zhang, Nilesh Jain, Nilesh Ahuja, Selvakumar Panneer, Nandita Vijaykumar
International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) 2025 Spotlight
Retri3D: 3D Neural Graphics Representation Retrieval
Yushi Guan, Daniel Kwan, Jean Sebastien Dandurand, Xi Yan, Ruofan Liang, Yuxuan Zhang, Nilesh Jain, Nilesh Ahuja, Selvakumar Panneer, Nandita Vijaykumar
International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) 2025 Spotlight
StructEval: Benchmarking LLMs' Capabilities to Generate Structural Outputs
Jialin Yang, Dongfu Jiang, Lipeng He, Sherman Siu, Yuxuan Zhang, Disen Liao, Zhuofeng Li, Huaye Zeng, Yiming Jia, Haozhe Wang, Benjamin Schneider, Chi Ruan, Wentao Ma, Zhiheng Lyu, Yifei Wang, Yi Lu, Quy Duc Do, Ziyan Jiang, Ping Nie, Wenhu Chen
Transactions on Machine Learning Research 2025
StructEval: Benchmarking LLMs' Capabilities to Generate Structural Outputs
Jialin Yang, Dongfu Jiang, Lipeng He, Sherman Siu, Yuxuan Zhang, Disen Liao, Zhuofeng Li, Huaye Zeng, Yiming Jia, Haozhe Wang, Benjamin Schneider, Chi Ruan, Wentao Ma, Zhiheng Lyu, Yifei Wang, Yi Lu, Quy Duc Do, Ziyan Jiang, Ping Nie, Wenhu Chen
Transactions on Machine Learning Research 2025
WikiGap: Promoting Epistemic Equity by Surfacing Knowledge Gaps Between English Wikipedia and other Language Editions
Zining Wang, Yuxuan Zhang, Dongwook Yoon, Nicholas Vincent, Farhan Samir, Vered Shwartz
Under Review
WikiGap: Promoting Epistemic Equity by Surfacing Knowledge Gaps Between English Wikipedia and other Language Editions
Zining Wang, Yuxuan Zhang, Dongwook Yoon, Nicholas Vincent, Farhan Samir, Vered Shwartz
Under Review
PLAICraft: Large-Scale Time-Aligned Vision-Speech-Action Dataset for Embodied AI
Yingchen He, Christian D. Weilbach, Martyna E. Wojciechowska, Yuxuan Zhang, Frank Wood
Under Review
PLAICraft: Large-Scale Time-Aligned Vision-Speech-Action Dataset for Embodied AI
Yingchen He, Christian D. Weilbach, Martyna E. Wojciechowska, Yuxuan Zhang, Frank Wood
Under Review
Enhancing Vector Quantization with Distributional Matching: A Theoretical and Empirical Study
Xianghong Fang, Litao Guo, Hengchao Chen, Yuxuan Zhang, Xiaofan Xia, Dingjie Song, Yexin Liu, Hao Wang, Harry Yang, Yuan Yuan, Qiang Sun
Under Review
Enhancing Vector Quantization with Distributional Matching: A Theoretical and Empirical Study
Xianghong Fang, Litao Guo, Hengchao Chen, Yuxuan Zhang, Xiaofan Xia, Dingjie Song, Yexin Liu, Hao Wang, Harry Yang, Yuan Yuan, Qiang Sun
Under Review
2024 1 paper
Edge-Enhanced Dilated Residual Attention Network for Multimodal Medical Image Fusion
Meng Zhou*, Yuxuan Zhang*, Xiaolan Xu, Jiayi Wang, Farzad Khalvati (* equal contribution)
IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM) 2024
Edge-Enhanced Dilated Residual Attention Network for Multimodal Medical Image Fusion
Meng Zhou*, Yuxuan Zhang*, Xiaolan Xu, Jiayi Wang, Farzad Khalvati (* equal contribution)
IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM) 2024
2021 1 paper
CelebHair: A New Large-Scale Dataset for Hairstyle Recommendation Based on CelebA
Yutao Chen*, Yuxuan Zhang*, Zhongrui Huang, Zhenyao Luo, Jinpeng Chen (* equal contribution)
Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management (KSEM) 2021
CelebHair: A New Large-Scale Dataset for Hairstyle Recommendation Based on CelebA
Yutao Chen*, Yuxuan Zhang*, Zhongrui Huang, Zhenyao Luo, Jinpeng Chen (* equal contribution)
Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management (KSEM) 2021
Academic Service
I have served as a reviewer for the following venues: