publications

(* Equal contribution, † Alphabetical order)

2026

  1. lavida-r1.png
    LaViDa-R1: Advancing Reasoning for Unified Multimodal Diffusion Language Models
    Shufan Li*, Yuchen Zhu*, Jiuxiang Gu, Kangning Liu, Zhe Lin, Yongxin Chen, Molei Tao, Aditya Grover, and Jason Kuen
    Preprint, 2026
    [Paper]
    dllm · multimodal · rl
  2. discrete-adjoint-sb.png
    Discrete Adjoint Schrödinger Bridge Sampler
    Wei Guo, Yuchen Zhu, Xiaochen Du, Juno Nam, Yongxin Chen, Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli, Guan-Horng Liu, Molei Tao, and Jaemoo Choi
    Preprint, 2026
    [Paper]
    dllm · sampling
  3. rethinking-rl-diffusion.png
    Rethinking the Design Space of Reinforcement Learning for Diffusion Models: On the Importance of Likelihood Estimation Beyond Loss Design
    Jaemoo Choi*, Yuchen Zhu*, Wei Guo, Petr Molodyk, Bo Yuan, Jinbin Bai, Yi Xin, Molei Tao, and Yongxin Chen
    Preprint, 2026
    [Paper]
    rl · diffusion
  4. prism.png
    Prism: Efficient Test-Time Scaling via Hierarchical Search and Self-Verification for Discrete Diffusion Language Models
    Jinbin Bai, Yixuan Li, Yuchen Zhu, Yi Xin, Qingyu Shi, Aosong Feng, Xiaohong Liu, Molei Tao, Jianru Xue, Xiangtai Li, and Ming-Hsuan Yang
    Preprint, 2026
    [Paper]
    dllm · inference

2025

  1. dmpo.png
    Enhancing Reasoning for Diffusion LLMs via Distribution Matching Policy Optimization
    Yuchen Zhu*, Wei Guo*, Jaemoo Choi, Petr Molodyk, Bo Yuan, Molei Tao, and Yongxin Chen
    Preprint, 2025
    [Paper] [Code]
    rl · dllm
  2. pdns.png
    Proximal Diffusion Neural Sampler
    Wei Guo*, Jaemoo Choi*, Yuchen Zhu, Molei Tao, and Yongxin Chen
    Preprint, 2025
    [Paper]
    sampling · diffusion · dllm
  3. mdns.png
    MDNS: Masked Diffusion Neural Sampler via Stochastic Optimal Control
    Yuchen Zhu*, Wei Guo*, Jaemoo Choi, Guan-Horng Liu, Yongxin Chen, and Molei Tao
    NeurIPS 2025
    [Paper] [Code]
    sampling · rl · dllm
  4. tr2d2.png
    TR2-D2: Tree Search Guided Trajectory-Aware Fine-Tuning for Discrete Diffusion
    Sophia Tang*, Yuchen Zhu*, Molei Tao, and Pranam Chatterjee
    Preprint, 2025
    [Paper] [Code]
    rl · dllm · bio
  5. fast-solver.png
    Fast Solvers for Discrete Diffusion Models: Theory and Applications of High-Order Algorithms
    Yinuo Ren*, Haoxuan Chen*, Yuchen Zhu*, Wei Guo*, Yongxin Chen, Grant M Rotskoff, Molei Tao, and Lexing Ying
    NeurIPS 2025
    [Paper]
    dllm · inference
  6. mimicking-reasoning.png
    Mimicking or Reasoning: Rethinking Multi-Modal In-Context Learning in Vision-Language Models
    Chengyue Huang*, Yuchen Zhu*, Sichen Zhu*, Jingyun Xiao, Moises Andrade, Shivang Chopra, and Zsolt Kira
    ICCV-W 2025
    [Paper]
    vlm · multimodal
  7. diffuse-everything.jpg
    Diffuse Everything: Multimodal Diffusion Models on Arbitrary State Spaces
    Kevin Rojas*, Yuchen Zhu*, Sichen Zhu, Felix Ye, and Molei Tao
    ICML 2025
    [Paper] [Code] [Poster]
    diffusion · dllm · multimodal
  8. learning-to-stop.png
    Learning to Stop: Deep Learning for Mean Field Optimal Stopping
    Lorenzo Magnino*, Yuchen Zhu*, and Mathieu Lauriere
    ICML 2025
    [Paper] [Code] [Poster]
    mf · rl
  9. trivialized-momentum.png
    Trivialized Momentum Facilitates Diffusion Generative Modeling on Lie Groups
    Yuchen Zhu*, Tianrong Chen*, Lingkai Kong, Evangelos Theodorou, and Molei Tao
    ICLR 2025
    [Paper] [Code] [Poster]
    diffusion · geometry
  10. diffusion-gene-expression.png
    Diffusion Generative Modeling for Spatially Resolved Gene Expression Inference from Histology Images
    Sichen Zhu*, Yuchen Zhu*, Molei Tao, and Peng Qiu
    ICLR 2025
    [Paper] [Code] [Poster]
    diffusion · bio
  11. masks-to-worlds.png
    From Masks to Worlds: A Hitchhiker's Guide to World Models
    Jinbin Bai, Yu Lei, Hecong Wu, Yuchen Zhu, Shufan Li, Yi Xin, Xiangtai Li, Molei Tao, Aditya Grover, and Ming-Hsuan Yang
    Preprint, 2025
    [Paper]
    survey

2024

  1. plug-play-generation.png
    Plug-and-Play Controllable Generation for Discrete Masked Models
    Wei Guo*, Yuchen Zhu*, Molei Tao, and Yongxin Chen
    Preprint, 2024
    [Paper]
    dllm · inference
  2. quantum-generation.png
    Quantum Generation with Structure Preserving Diffusion Model
    Yuchen Zhu, Tianrong Chen, Evangelos A Theodorou, Xie Chen, and Molei Tao
    Preprint, 2024
    [Paper]
    diffusion · quantum · geometry
  3. mfot.png
    Deep Learning for Mean Field Optimal Transport
    Sebastian Baudelet†, Brieuc Frenais†, Mathieu Lauriere†, Amal Machtalay†, and Yuchen Zhu†
    ESAIM 2024
    [Paper]
    mf
  4. mean-field.png
    A Mean-Field Analysis of Neural Stochastic Gradient Descent-Ascent for Functional Minimax Optimization
    Yuchen Zhu, Yufeng Zhang, Zhaoran Wang, Zhuoran Yang, and Xiaohong Chen
    Preprint, 2024
    [Paper] [Poster]
    mf · rl