Research & academic life

About me.

I am a Ph.D. student in the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, where I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Sarah Erfani and Dr. Feng Liu. Prior to my doctoral studies, I received my Master of Data Science from the same university under the guidance of Associate Professor Mingming Gong and Dr. Liuhua Peng. I also hold a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Melbourne.

My research focuses on robustness and generalisation in large language models, particularly how post-training can adapt model behaviour to new requirements while preserving useful capabilities. I am interested in the gap between improvements under limited supervision and reliable behaviour in deployment, and in developing learning methods that remain dependable as tasks and environments change.

More broadly, I am interested in the statistical foundations of trustworthy machine learning, including uncertainty quantification and conformal prediction. I draw on my background in mathematics and statistics to study model reliability and principled evaluation, with additional work in time-series modelling.

A little more about me, beyond research

Research interests

01

LLM Robustness & Post-training

Robustness and generalisation in large language models, particularly through post-training and adaptation. My focus is on reliable behaviour under changing conditions while preserving the useful capabilities of foundation models.

02

Trustworthy & Statistical Learning

The statistical foundations of trustworthy machine learning, including uncertainty quantification and conformal prediction. I am interested in principled ways to assess reliability and understand the limits of model predictions.

03

Time Series Modelling

Machine learning for temporal data, spanning forecasting and generative modelling. I study how models capture evolving patterns and generalise across different settings, guided by statistical structure.

Publications

Google Scholar

LLM Robustness

  1. Under review

    Robust Preference Alignment under Shifting Preference Distributions

  2. Under review

    Trigger Isolation: Decomposing Triggers and Targets for LLM Backdoor Purification

  3. Under review

    Can Language Represent Semantic Variation? A Semantic Basis for VLM Robustness Audits

Time Series

  1. Under review

    StrideDiffusion: Accelerating Diffusion Models for Time-Series Generation

  2. NeurIPS2025

    Towards Accurate Time Series Forecasting via Implicit Decoding

    Xinyu Li, Yuchen Luo, Hao Wang, Haoxuan Li, Liuhua Peng, Feng Liu, Yandong Guo, Kun Zhang, Mingming Gong

    Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 38.

  3. Neural Networks2026

    Adapformer: Adaptive Channel Management for Multivariate Time Series Forecasting

    Yuchen Luo, Xinyu Li, Liuhua Peng, Mingming Gong

    Vol. 193, article 107988. First published online in 2025.

Education

  1. Sep 2025 — present

    Ph.D. in Computing and Information Systems

    The University of Melbourne

    School of Computing and Information Systems

  2. Mar 2024 — Aug 2025

    Master of Data Science

    The University of Melbourne

  3. Mar 2021 — Dec 2023

    Bachelor of Science

    The University of Melbourne

  4. Feb 2018 — Nov 2020

    Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE)

    Glen Waverley Secondary College

    ATAR 99.80

Research experience

  1. Oct 2025 — Feb 2026

    Research Assistant

    The University of Melbourne

    Calibrated models for engineering applications using statistical methods.

    With Prof. Kevin Otto and Dr. Liuhua Peng.

Teaching

Jul 2024 — present

Tutoring at The University of Melbourne

2026

2025

2024

Academic service

  • Neural Networks

    Journal reviewer

  • ICLR 2027

    Conference reviewer

Honours & awards

  • 2025

    Melbourne Research Scholarship

  • 2025

    Dean’s Honours List — Faculty of Science

  • 2023

    Mathematics and Statistics Vacation Scholarship

  • 2022, 2023

    Dean’s Honours List — Bachelor of Science

  • 2022

    Melbourne International Undergraduate Scholarship

Get in touch

I’m happy to connect about research and potential collaborations.

stluo.luo@gmail.com

Melbourne, Australia