Dr. Tongyang Li joined Peking University in July 2021 and is currently an assistant professor at Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, Peking University. Previously he was a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received Master and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland in 2018 and 2020, respectively. He received Bachelor of Engineering from Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University and Bachelor of Science from Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University, both in 2015. Dr. Tongyang Li’s research focuses on designing quantum algorithms for machine learning and optimization, as well as performing quantum algorithms on current noisy, intermediate-scale quantum devices (NISQ). He has published more than 40 papers at Nature Physics, Nature Communications, Journal of the ACM, Physical Review Letters, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, STOC, ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, AAAI, and other top venues. He has 9 contributed talks at QIP. He served as an editor for the journal Quantum, a co-PC chair of AQIS 2025, and PC member/area chairs of AQIS 2021, TQC 2022, QCTIP 2022, QIP 2023, ICLR 2024, QCTIP 2024, TQC 2024, NeurIPS 2024, ICLR 2025, NeurIPS 2025, ICLR 2026, QIP 2026, ICML 2026, TQC 2026 conferences. He received Outstanding Reviewer Award from ICML 2020 and ICML 2022.
My research investigates interdisciplinary subjects among quantum computing, machine learning, and theoretical computer science, with the focus on designing quantum algorithms for machine learning and optimization. I am also interested in quantum simulation, quantum query complexity, and quantum walks.
Official WebsiteGoogle Scholar
News
02/2022, I will serve as a reviewer for the newly founded journalTransactions on Machine Learning Research(TMLR). Please consider submitting your work there!
12/2021, my paper "Hamiltonian simulation with random inputs" was accepted as a contributed talk at the 25th Annual Conference on Quantum Information Processing (QIP 2022).
12/2021, I will serve as a PC member ofTQC 2022. Please consider submitting your work there!
12/2021, I will serve as a PC member ofQCTIP 2022. Please consider submitting your work there!
10/2021, I gave a talk about "Quantum algorithms for convex and nonconvex optimization" at the INFORMS 2021 Annual Meeting. See my presentationhere.
09/2021, our paper "Escape saddle points by a simple gradient-descent based algorithm" was accepted by the 35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2021). Congratulations to Chenyi Zhang for having the first accepted paper at NeurIPS!
08/2021, our paper "Quantum algorithms for escaping from saddle points" was accepted byQuantum. Congratulations to both Chenyi Zhang and Jiaqi Leng for having the first publication in quantum computing research!
08/2021, I served as a PC member ofAQIS 2021.
07/2021, I joined the Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, Peking University as an assistant professor. PhD and postdoc applications are welcomed!
Awards
2020, Top Reviewer Award, 37th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2020)
2018-2021,QISE-NET Triplet Award(the only awardee in theoretical computer science in Cohort One)
2018-2020,IBM PhD Fellowship(the only awardee in quantum computing in 2018)
2015-2017,Lanczos Fellowshipand Dean's Fellowship, Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science and Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland
2015,IIIS Excellent Gradates, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University (only 6 awardees in total)
2014, Yao Award (Recognition Prize), Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University (highest award to undergraduate CS majors; only 10 awardees in total)
2011, Gold Medal, Chinese Mathematical Olympiad (Top 50 around China)
