Yunhao Yang is a 4th-year Ph.D. student in computer science at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to this, he received B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science, and a B.A. in mathematics from UT Austin. He is currently a member of the Center for Autonomy, supervised by Prof. Ufuk Topcu. His research interests include integrating large language models and formal methods for autonomy and uncertainty quantification in AI.

He received the Amazon Science Research Fellowship (by the UT-Amazon Hub) in the 2024~2025 academic year interned at Cruise (a subsidiary of GM) in the summer of 2024 and returned to GM in the summer of 2026, conducting research on autonomous driving.

Selected Publications

* Equal Contribution

Journal

Robot visual perception privacy preservation thumbnail
Real-Time Privacy Preservation for Robot Visual Perception
Minkyu Choi*, Yunhao Yang*, Neel Bhatt*, Kushagra Gupta, Sahil Shah, Aditya Rai, David Fridovich-Keil, Ufuk Topcu, Sandeep P. Chinchali
Transactions on Machine Learning Research, 2025.
Privacy risks in recurrent neural networks thumbnail
On the Privacy Risks of Deploying Recurrent Neural Networks in Machine Learning
Yunhao Yang*, Parham Gohari*, Ufuk Topcu
Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2023.
Self-enhancing sequence-to-sequence model thumbnail
Self-Enhancing Multi-filter Sequence-to-Sequence Model
Yunhao Yang, Zhaokun Xue, Andrew Whinston
Procedia Computer Science, Elsevier, 2023.

Conference Proceedings

LAD-VF robot planning thumbnail
LAD-VF: LLM-Automatic Differentiation Enables Fine-Tuning-Free Robot Planning from Formal Methods Feedback
Yunhao Yang, Junyuan Hong, Gabriel Jacob Perin, Zhiwen Fan, Li Yin, Zhangyang Wang, Ufuk Topcu
IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA), 2026.
Uncertainty-guided driving perception thumbnail
Uncertainty-Guided Enhancement on Driving Perception System via Foundation Models
Yunhao Yang, Yuxin Hu, Mao Ye, Zaiwei Zhang, Zhichao Lu, Yi Xu, Ufuk Topcu, Ben Snyder
IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA), 2025.
Uncertainty-aware multimodal planning thumbnail
Know Where You're Uncertain When Planning with Multimodal Foundation Models: A Formal Framework
Neel P. Bhatt*, Yunhao Yang*, Rohan Siva, Daniel Milan, Ufuk Topcu, Zhangyang Wang
Annual Conference on Machine Learning and Systems (MLSys), 2025.
Neuro-symbolic video understanding thumbnail
Towards Neuro-Symbolic Video Understanding
Minkyu Choi*, Harsh Goel*, Mohammad Omama*, Yunhao Yang, Sahil Shah, Sandeep P. Chinchali
European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2024. Oral Presentation.
Formal methods feedback for language model fine-tuning thumbnail
Fine-Tuning Language Models Using Formal Methods Feedback: A Use Case in Autonomous Systems
Yunhao Yang*, Neel Bhatt*, Tyler Ingebrand*, William Ward, Steven Carr, Zhangyang Wang, Ufuk Topcu
Annual Conference on Machine Learning and Systems (MLSys), 2024.
Verifiable sequential decision-making thumbnail
Multimodal Pretrained Models for Verifiable Sequential Decision-Making: Planning, Grounding, and Perception
Yunhao Yang, Cyrus Neary, Ufuk Topcu
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), 2024. Oral Presentation.
Reinforcement learning for combinatorial optimization thumbnail
A Survey on Reinforcement Learning for Combinatorial Optimization
Yunhao Yang, Andrew B. Whinston
IEEE World Conference on Applied Intelligence and Computing (AIC), 2023.
Latent enhanced multi-filter sequence-to-sequence model thumbnail
Training Heterogeneous Features in Sequence to Sequence Tasks: Latent Enhanced Multi-filter Seq2Seq Model
Yunhao Yang, Zhaokun Xue
Proceedings of Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys), Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, Springer, 2022.

Patent

Automaton-based controller patent thumbnail
Automaton-Based Controller and Method with Generative Language Models for Task Execution
Ufuk Topcu, Yunhao Yang, Cyrus Neary, Jean-Raphaƫl Gaglione
US Patent App. 18/958,684.

Awards and Fellowships

Amazon Fellow. Amazon Science Hub, 2024-2025.

Special Departmental Honor in Computer Science. College of Natural Science, UT Austin, 2022.

Research Distinction. College of Natural Science, UT Austin, 2021.

Undergraduate Research Fellowship. College of Natural Science, UT Austin, 2020.


Community Services

Journal and Conference Review

Area Chair for MLSys 2025

Reviewer for Journal of Computational and Cognitive Engineering, NeurIPS, ICLR, TMLR, ICML

Program Committee for CSCT 2023, CSCT 2023, ICCIS 2023, ICIVC 2023

Volunteer

AutoDrive Lab Internship, 2025 and 2026

STEM Girl Day at UT Austin, 2024 and 2025

Mentor for REACT RUE summer program, 2023

Volunteer for TACC Back@TACC, 2022 and 2024

Volunteer for LASA High School Visit, 2023

Volunteer for FIRST Technical Challenge: Texas-Central GEMS League Tournament, 2023