Hello! Husky here! I'm an MSML student at CMU, working with the Locus Lab. My research focuses on LLM pre-training, particularly model architectures and training algorithms. I am currently interested in:
- Loop Models - weight-tied architectures and iterative dynamics.
- Scalable Reasoning - architectures and training methods that improve both reasoning capability and computational efficiency.
Before this, I worked on generative world models with the VCG Group at Harvard and Maitrix at UCSD, LLM-agent-based dataset curation with the TRAIS Lab at UIUC, and AI interpretability with the XAI Lab at SJTU. More details are available in Experience below.
News
- 2026/04
- Two papers (EqR and FloWM) are accepted to ICML 2026. See you in Seoul!
- Awesome Loop Models is released: a curated list and interactive browser for loop-model papers and technical blogs.
- 2026/01The code of Flow Equivariant World Models is released.
- 2025/11Tech report of PAN World Model is released.
- 2025/07Magica, a Generative World Engine, is now available online.
- 2025/05DCA-Bench has been accepted to KDD 2025 DB-Track as an oral paper.
Notes & Thoughts
Short posts, ideas, and quick public notes.
3 posts
- 2026/06/18Weight-Tied Iterative Models: Promise, Hype, and the Missing Evidence in 2026TL;DRWeight-tied iterative models are exciting, but the field still lacks solid evidence that they beat strong feedforward baselines under matched training and inference budgets.
- 2026/05/21Rethinking Hierarchy in Iterative Reasoning ModelsTL;DREarly EqR/TRM observations suggest low-level latents may be better than high-level solution states for adaptive halting, hinting at value-like signals about progress, confidence, or residual error.
- 2026/05/01The Road to Flow Equivariant World Models: Memory for Partially Observed Dynamic EnvironmentsTL;DRA reflection on how FlowM grew from industrial world-modeling intuition, failed attempts with Minecraft, 3D memory, and SSMs, and a cleaner question about latent memory for hidden dynamics.
Selected Works
See the Research page for the complete list.
PAN: A World Model for General, Interactable, and Long-Horizon World Simulation
Jiannan Xiang, Yi Gu, Zihan Liu, Zeyu Feng, Qiyue Gao, Yiyan Hu, Benhao Huang, Guangyi Liu, Yichi Yang, Kun Zhou, Davit Abrahamyan, Arif Ahmad, Ganesh Bannur, Junrong Chen, Kimi Chen, Mingkai Deng, Ruobing Han, Xinqi Huang, Haoqiang Kang, Zheqi Li, Enze Ma, Hector Ren, Yashowardhan Shinde, Rohan Shingre, Ramsundar Tanikella, Kaiming Tao, Dequan Yang, Xinle Yu, Cong Zeng, Binglin Zhou, Hector Liu, Zhiting Hu, Eric P. Xing
Nov 13th 2025
PAN brings imagination to life — fusing language, action, and vision to simulate the world's evolution with stunning realism and consistency.

Experience & Education
Education
Aug 2025 - Feb 2027 (expected)
M.S. in Machine Learning
Carnegie Mellon University
Sept. 2025 - Present
Locus Lab, CMU
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Studying scalable equilibrium models. Advised by Zico Kolter.
Education
Sept 2021 - July 2025
B.E. in Computer Science
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Mar. 2025 - Aug. 2025
VCG Group, Harvard
Cambridge, MA, USA
Developed Flow Equivariant World Models, studying structured dynamics outside the visible field of view. Advised by Yilun Du, Fangneng Zhan, and Andy Keller.
Jun. 2024 - Mar. 2025
Maitrix.org, UCSD
San Diego, CA, USA
Core contributor to PAN World Models, previously leading the data and game-generation components. Advised by Zhiting Hu.
Nov. 2023 - Sept. 2024
TRAIS Lab, UIUC
remote
Developed DCA-Bench, a benchmark for evaluating LLM agents on dataset issue detection and dataset curation. Advised by Jiaqi W. Ma.
Feb. 2023 - Jan. 2024
XAI Lab, SJTU
Shanghai, China
Studied AI interpretability and safety through generalizable interaction primitives in DNNs, using Shapley-value theory. Advised by Quanshi Zhang.
Awards & Scholarships
National Scholarship
2024
Outstanding Graduate of Shanghai Jiao Tong University
2025
Rui Yuan Hong Shan Scholarship, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (RMB 20,000)
2023
Shao Qiu Scholarship, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (RMB 10,000)
2022


