Buyun Liang

Buyun Liang

Computer and Information Science Ph.D. Student

University of Pennsylvania

Biography

I am a Computer and Information Science Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Prof. René Vidal. My research interests have spanned optimization for AI, trustworthy AI and AI for science. Before joining Penn, I obtained a M.S. degree in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, advised by Prof. Ju Sun, a M.S. degree in Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, advised by Prof. J. Ilja Siepmann, and a B.S. degree in Physics at Nanjing University.

Download my Curriculum Vitae .

Interests
  • Trustworthy AI
  • Optimization for AI
  • AI for Science
Education

  • Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science, 2023 -

    University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA 🇺🇸

  • M.S. in Computer Science, 2020 - 2023

    University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA 🇺🇸

  • M.S. in Materials Science, 2018 - 2020

    University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA 🇺🇸

  • B.S. in Physics, 2014 - 2018

    Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China 🇨🇳

Publications

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Selected Trustworthy AI OPT for AI AI for Science & Scientific Computing All
Buyun Liang, Liangzu Peng, Jinqi Luo, Darshan Thaker, Kwan Ho Ryan Chan, René Vidal (2025). SECA: Semantically Equivalent and Coherent Attacks for Eliciting LLM Hallucinations. In The Thirty-Ninth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2025).

NeurIPS Page Code

Buyun Liang, Kwan Ho Ryan Chan, Darshan Thaker, Jinqi Luo, René Vidal (2025). KDA: A Knowledge-Distilled Attacker for Generating Diverse Prompts to Jailbreak LLMs. arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.05223.

arXiv

Ryan de Vera, Buyun Liang, Binyao Guo, Qizhi He, Ju Sun (2024). Neural Topology Optimization Based on Differential Programming With Principled Constrained Optimization . In ASME 2024 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE2024).

IMECE2024 Page

Jingyi L. Chen, Jesse L. Prelesnik, Buyun Liang, Yangzesheng Sun, Mrugank Bhatt, Christopher Knight, Krishnan Mahesh, J. Ilja Siepmann (2023). Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of bubble collapse in water: Effects of system size, water model, and nitrogen. The Journal of Chemical Physics (JCP Editors’ Choice 2023).

JCP Page

Hengyue Liang, Buyun Liang, Le Peng, Ying Cui, Tim Mitchell, Ju Sun (2023). Optimization and optimizers for adversarial robustness. arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.13401.

arXiv

Hengyue Liang, Buyun Liang, Le Peng, Ying Cui, Tim Mitchell, Ju Sun (2023). Implications of Solution Patterns on Adversarial Robustness. In Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) Workshop of Adversarial Machine Learning on Computer Vision (Art of Robustness).

CVPR Page

Buyun Liang, Tim Mitchell, Ju Sun (2022). NCVX: A General-Purpose Optimization Solver for Constrained Machine and Deep Learning. In Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) Workshop on Optimization for Machine Learning (OPT 2022).

NeurIPS Page arXiv Poster

Hengyue Liang, Buyun Liang, Ying Cui, Tim Mitchell, Ju Sun (2022). Optimization for Robustness Evaluation beyond ℓp Metrics. In IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2023) & Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) Workshop on Optimization for Machine Learning (OPT 2022).

ICASSP Page NeurIPS Page arXiv Poster

Buyun Liang, Tim Mitchell, Ju Sun (2021). NCVX: A User-Friendly and Scalable Package for Nonconvex Optimization in Machine Learning. ArXiv preprint arXiv:2111.13984.

arXiv

J. Ilja Siepmann, Jingyi L. Chen, Buyun Liang, Krishnan Mahesh (2020). Effect of Non-Condensable Gas on the Thermophysical Properties of Bubbly Water and on Bubble Collapse Dynamics Probed by Molecular Simulations. 33rd Symposium on Naval Hydrodynamics, Osaka, Japan, 18-23 October 2020.

Paper

Software

NCVX PyGRANSO
NCVX (NonConVeX) is a user-friendly and scalable python software package targeting general nonsmooth NCVX problems with nonsmooth constraints.
Code Website ICCOPT22 Slides SDM 2023 slides MMLS 2023 Poster 3M Poster (2023)
NCVX PyGRANSO

Powerlifting

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Selected All
2023 USAPL Ivy League Cup
Body Weight: 74.15kg. Squat: 145kg; Bench Press: 107.5kg; Deadlift: 185kg. Total 437.5kg.
Video
2023 USAPL Ivy League Cup
2023 USA Powerlifting Central and Midwest Regional Championships
Body Weight: 80.25kg. Squat: 160kg; Bench Press: 112.5kg; Deadlift: 195kg. Total 467.5kg.
Video
2023 USA Powerlifting Central and Midwest Regional Championships
Fall 2022 Mock Competition
Body Weight: 77.1kg. Squat: 163.3kg; Bench Press: 115.7kg; Deadlift: 192.8kg. Total 471.7kg.
Video
Fall 2022 Mock Competition
Summer 2022 Mock Competition
Body Weight: 77.3kg. Squat: 154.2kg; Bench Press: 113.4kg; Deadlift: 188.2kg. Total 455.9kg.
Video
Summer 2022 Mock Competition
2022 USA Powerlifting Minnesota Junior, Open & Master State Championships
Body Weight: 76.35kg. Squat: 157.5kg; Bench Press: 105kg; Deadlift: 180kg. Total 442.5kg.
Video
2022 USA Powerlifting Minnesota Junior, Open & Master State Championships
2018 Raise the Bar -- Powerlifting
Body Weight: 75.3kg. Squat: 165.6kg; Bench Press: 102.1kg; Deadlift: 172.4kg. Total 440kg.
Video
2018 Raise the Bar -- Powerlifting
2018 Han Tang Powerlifting (汉唐杯第四届大陆健力纪录赛)
Body Weight: 73.6kg. Squat: 160kg; Bench Press: 95kg; Deadlift: 170kg. Total 425kg.
Video
2018 Han Tang Powerlifting (汉唐杯第四届大陆健力纪录赛)

Contact