Our People

The MELON Research Group is a diverse, collaborative team of researchers, students, and collaborators working to advance the frontiers of machine learning and optimization.

Principal Investigator

Kun Yuan (袁坤)

Kun Yuan (袁坤)

PI

Assistant Professor

Center for Machine Learning Research (CMLR), Peking University

Kun Yuan is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Machine Learning Research (CMLR), Peking University. His research lies in the theoretical and algorithmic foundations of optimization, signal processing, and machine learning. He currently focuses on efficient pre-training and post-training for large language models, and AI for Math. Before joining Peking University, he was a staff algorithm engineer in the Decision Intelligence Lab at Alibaba (US) Group, led by Prof. Wotao Yin. He completed his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2019, under the supervision of Prof. Ali H. Sayed, and was a visiting researcher at EPFL from January to June 2018.

Optimization Theory & AlgorithmsMachine LearningSignal ProcessingEfficient LLM Pre-training & Post-trainingAI for MathematicsDistributed & Decentralized Learning

Alumni & Destinations

Graduated students and their destinations, listed in chronological order of graduation.

  • Liyuan Liang

    Undergraduate Student

    2020.9–2024.6

    Ph.D. student, University of California, Berkeley

  • Lujing Zhang

    Undergraduate Student

    2020.9–2024.6

    Ph.D. student, Carnegie Mellon University

  • Ziheng Cheng

    Undergraduate Student

    2020.9–2024.6

    Ph.D. student, University of California, Berkeley

  • Hao Yuan

    Master's Student

    2022.9–2025.6

    The Second High School Attached to East China Normal University

  • Jinghua Huang

    Master's Student

    2022.9–2025.6

    ByteDance

  • Jiaxuan Cai

    Master's Student

    2023.9–2025.6

    Huawei

  • Shuo Chen

    Master's Student

    2023.9–2025.6

    Beijing Academy

  • Baihao Wu

    Master's Student

    2023.9–2026.6

    ByteDance

  • Peijing Li

    Master's Student

    2023.9–2026.6

    Ph.D. student, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen(co-supervised with Prof. Peijie Zhou)

  • Yilong Song

    Master's Student

    2023.9–2026.6

    Ph.D. student, Imperial College London

  • Yipeng Hu

    Master's Student

    2023.9–2026.6

    ByteDance(co-supervised with Prof. Lei Wu)

  • Yongqi Qiao

    Master's Student

    2023.9–2026.6

    ByteDance

  • Chuyan Chen

    Master's Student

    2024.9–2026.6

    StepFun

  • Yuqi Xu

    Master's Student

    2024.9–2026.6

    JD.com

  • Zixiang Gao

    Master's Student

    2024.9–2026.6

    StepFun

  • Gan Luo

    Undergraduate Student

    2022.9–2026.6

    Ph.D. student, Stanford University

  • Xinyi Chen

    Undergraduate Student

    2022.9–2026.6

    Ph.D. student, University of Washington

  • Yihan Jin

    Undergraduate Student

    2022.9–2026.6

    M.S. student, Peking University

Group lunch, June 2026
Group lunch, June 2026

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We are always looking for curious, motivated students and researchers to join the group. Explore open positions and how to apply.

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