PhD student Shuyang Cao awarded Bloomberg Data Science Fellowship

Shuyang Cao, a PhD student in computer science and engineering, has been selected as a recipient of the 2023-2024 Bloomberg Data Science PhD Fellowship. This fellowship program seeks to support the next generation of data science experts by identifying PhD students who are producing groundbreaking research and open source contributions. The fellowship is highly competitive, given to fewer than 10 PhD students annually out of a large applicant pool. Cao was also offered a fellowship from the JP Morgan AI Research Awards program.

Cao was selected for this honor due to his record of outstanding research in the area of natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI). Under faculty advisor Lu Wang, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, Cao has developed several language processing mechanisms to improve text summarization. His contributions include exploring how learning from incorrect samples can improve the correctness of system outputs; the development of a technique to account for document structure in summary generation; and more.

As a Bloomberg fellow, Cao will receive professional development and research opportunities, as well as financial support. These resources will facilitate his future research endeavors, enabling his continued advances in the design of enhanced AI and NLP technologies. With Bloomberg’s support, Cao will explore large language models (LLMs) and their alignment with user preferences, specifically by determining which forms of human feedback are most effective in training these models. This work will contribute to the development of more user-friendly and human-centered LLMs, increasing their utility in a variety of contexts.