Dongyu Yao (Rain)

Dongyu Yao (Rain)

Carnegie Mellon University

😊 About Me

👋Greetings! I’m Dongyu (Rain) Yao (姚栋宇), a Master's student in Computer Vision (MSCV) at Carnegie Mellon University. I obtained my Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree at the School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Wuhan University (WHU). Prior to WHU, I spent three years studying at No.1 Middle School Affiliated to CCNU (华中师大一附中).

🔬 Research Interest

My research interests focus on Data-centric AI and Reliable (Multi-modal) AI, encompassing key areas in Computer Vision (data-efficient scene understanding), Natural Language Processing, and Generative AI (LLMs and MLLMs). Recently, I’m exploring Multi-modal Reasoning and Alignment, especially evaluation and de-hallucination for Vision-language Models with multi-image and video understanding capabilities.

🔥 News

  • 2024.09: One paper is accepted by NeurIPS 2024.
  • 2024.06: Obtained my Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree in Cyberspace Security.
  • 2024.05: Selected as Outstanding Graduate (Award Rate: 10%).
  • 2024.04: One paper is accepted by CogSci 2024 as Oral Presentation.
  • 2024.03: Admitted to the Master of Science in Computer Vision (MSCV) program at Carnegie Mellon University!!!
  • 2024.01: Our work of FuzzLLM is invited to present at one of the top hacker conventions – ShmooCon 2024!
  • 2023.12: One paper is accepted by ICASSP 2024.
  • 2023.10: I won the National Scholarship (Award Rate: 0.2% national-wide), First Class Scholarship (Award Rate: 5% school-wide), and was awarded the Pacemaker to Merit Student of WHU (Award Rate: 60/59774=0.1%).
  • 2023.10: I ranked 1/144 in the annual comprehensive assessment (the only participant with a 90+ overall score).
  • 2023.08: One paper is accepted by ICCVW UnCV 2023.

📝 Publications

† : equal contribution, * : corresponding author

Sorted by date of acceptance.

🏅 Honors and Awards

  • 2024.06 Outstanding Graduate (Award Rate: 10%) Wuhan University
  • 2023.10 Pacemaker to Merit Student (Award Rate: 60/59774=0.1%) Wuhan University
  • 2023.10 National Scholarship (Award Rate: 0.2% national-wide) Ministry of Education, China
  • 2023.10 First Class Scholarship of WHU (Award Rate: 5% school-wide) Wuhan University
  • 2023.08 National Second Prize in the 16th China Undergraduate Computer Design Competition (Award Rate: 10% nation-wide)

📖 Educations

💻 Internships

  • 2025.01 - now, Research Assistant at CMU, under the supervision of Prof. Katia Sycara and Dr. Yaqi Xie.

  • 2024.11 - 2025.03, Research Assistant at MIT and HKUST, under the supervision of Prof. Paul Pu Liang and Dr. Yi R. (May) Fung (Now Assistant Professor at HKUST).

  • 2024.04 - 2024.07, Machine Learning Engineer Intern at TikTok (ByteDance)
  • 2023.07 - 2023.09, UCInspire Summer Research Program (University of California Irvine), Supervised by Prof. Ian G. Harris
  • 2022.07 - 2023.12, Student Research Assistant at Key Laboratory of Aerospace Information Security and Trusted Computing, Supervised by Prof. Run Wang
  • 2022.03 - 2022.11, Student Research Assistant at NIS&P lab, supervised by Prof. Qian Wang

🎢 Activities

Academic Services

Conference Reviewer:

  • ICLR Workshops (WMARK and FM-Wild), 2025

  • AAAI Workshops (PDLM and MARW), 2025

  • 15th IEEE Symposium on Computer Applications & Industrial Electronics (ISCAIE), 2025
  • 7th IEEE Symposium on Computers & Informatics (ISCI), 2025

Journal Reviewer:

  • IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS)

  • ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST)

  • Applied Intelligence Journal, Springer Nature

University Services

  • 2020.09 - 2023.09, Chief Percussionist at Wuhan University Symphony Orchestra

Teaching Experiences

Invited Talks

  • How to prepare for TOEFL listening and speaking, Spring 2023. [Lecture Slides]

🍲 Misc

🥁 Music Band & Symphony Orchestra

I have been practicing and performing the percussion instruments for 18+ years (since 4 years old). My repertoire of performance skills includes instruments found in symphony orchestras and other types of music (Rock, Funk, Jazz, Pop, Chinese Folk music, etc.), such as the Snare drum, Timpani, Bass drum, Drum kit, Cymbals, Triangle, Chimes, Glockenspiel, Vibraphone, Xylophone, Marimba, Tambourine, Conga, Gong, Clave, etc.

Here are some selected recordings of my performances:

🎤 Voice & Eloquence

  • I’m recently in love with Hamilton (the broadway muscial), I can rap or sing at least 15 songs in the play.

  • I developed a strong passion for delivering English speeches during my junior school years, after winning several championships in English speaking contests.
  • My favorite speech is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
  • My TOEFL single best score is 112 with 28 for speaking, thanks to my day-to-day oral practice. I also scored 330 (v162 + q168 + w4.0) in GRE.

🏀 Basketball Team

  • I played Shooting Guard at the Men’s Basketball Team of SCSE during my undergrad years