Latest OpenSkill: Open-World Self-Evolution for LLM Agents
Latest RewardHarness: Self-Evolving Agentic Post-Training
Latest ClawBench: Can AI Agents Complete Everyday Online Tasks?
Latest Watch Before You Answer: Learning from Visually Grounded Post-Training
Yuxuan Zhang

Yuxuan Zhang

Yuxuan Zhang
Agentic AI · LLM · RL
PhD @ UBC · Vector Institute
On the internship market — open to research internship roles in industry and academia.

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:

Agentic AI Large Language Models Reinforcement Learning Cognitive Abilities of Agents

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.


Let's collaborate

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

Cover image for Can AI Agents Complete Everyday Online Tasks?
Under Review

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 arXiv
Cover image for Watch Before You Answer
Under Review

Watch 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 arXiv
Cover image for RewardHarness: Self-Evolving Agentic Post-Training
COLM 2026

RewardHarness: 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 Columbia
    PhD in Computer Science
    Jan. 2025 - Present
  • University of Toronto
    MSc in Applied Computing
    Sept. 2022 - June 2024
  • Peking University
    Bachelor in Economics
    Sept. 2019 - June 2022
  • SOTI
    Data Scientist
    Jan. 2024 - Dec. 2024
    Research Intern
    May 2023 - Dec. 2023
  • 2026 Compute Transparency Champion Award, CVPR 2026
  • 2025 President's Academic Excellence Award
  • 2023 Mitacs Accelerate Fellowship ($30,000)

News

2026
ClawBench public preprint (under review) is available. See the paper, code, and data.
Apr 13
Watch Before You Answer public preprint (under review) is available. Read the paper.
Apr 08
2025
ScholarCopilot has been accepted at COLM 2025! Play with the demo here.
Jul 07
Retri3D has been accepted at ICLR 2025 as a Spotlight 🌟!
Feb 10
WikiGap is released! Try the Chrome extension here.
Feb 08
StructEval is released! Check out the dataset.
Feb 03

Selected Publications (view all )

2026 9 papers
Cover image for RewardHarness: Self-Evolving Agentic Post-Training

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

Cover image for ClawBench: Can AI Agents Complete Everyday Online Tasks?

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

Cover image for Watch Before You Answer: Learning from Visually Grounded Post-Training

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

Cover image for Function-Aware Fill-in-the-Middle as Mid-Training for Coding Agent Foundation Models

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

Cover image for Learning from the Self-future: On-policy Self-distillation for dLLMs

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

Cover image for CompRank: Efficient LLM Reranking via Token-Level Compression and Decoding-Free Scoring

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

Cover image for OpenSkill: Open-World Self-Evolution for LLM Agents

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

Cover image for Where, What, Why, and Importance: Structured Defect Grounding for Text-to-Image Feedback

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

Cover image for MIRA: Mid-training Rubric Anchoring for Source-Aware Data Selection

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
Cover image for Dr. Bench: A Multidimensional Evaluation for Deep Research Agents, from Answers to Reports

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

Cover image for ScholarCopilot: Training Large Language Models for Academic Writing with Accurate Citations

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

Cover image for Retri3D: 3D Neural Graphics Representation Retrieval

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

Cover image for VideoScore2: Think before You Score in Generative Video Evaluation

VideoScore2: Think before You Score in Generative Video Evaluation

Transactions on Machine Learning Research 2026

VideoScore2: Think before You Score in Generative Video Evaluation

Transactions on Machine Learning Research 2026

Cover image for StructEval: Benchmarking LLMs' Capabilities to Generate Structural Outputs

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

Cover image for WikiGap: Promoting Epistemic Equity by Surfacing Knowledge Gaps Between English Wikipedia and other Language Editions

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

Cover image for PLAICraft: Large-Scale Time-Aligned Vision-Speech-Action Dataset for Embodied AI

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

Cover image for Enhancing Vector Quantization with Distributional Matching: A Theoretical and Empirical Study

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
Cover image for Edge-Enhanced Dilated Residual Attention Network for Multimodal Medical Image Fusion

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
Cover image for CelebHair: A New Large-Scale Dataset for Hairstyle Recommendation Based on CelebA

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:

NeurIPS 2026 COLM 2026 CVPR 2026 ECCV 2026 ACL ARR 2026 ICMLW 2026 ICLRW 2026

Advisors & Collaborators