Yuchen Li

Research Scientist at Meta | Ph.D. in Math at UW-Madison

I am a Research Scientist at Meta. I received my Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I worked with Prof. Hanbaek Lyu. My dissertation, “Block Majorization–Minimization for Nonconvex Optimization and Beyond: Trust-Region, Riemannian, and Stochastic Extensions”, was awarded the John Nohel Prize for Outstanding Dissertation. During my doctoral studies, I also earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science.

My research centers on large-scale optimization, with a focus on the design and theoretical analysis of scalable algorithms for nonconvex and structured problems. In particular, I have developed and studied:

  • Block majorization–minimization methods for nonconvex optimization
  • Riemannian optimization for multi-block problems
  • Stochastic optimization algorithms
  • Trust-region frameworks

I am broadly interested in bridging optimization theory and real-world machine learning systems, especially in settings that require scalability, structure awareness, and strong convergence guarantees.

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