About me
Hello! I’m Shangzhe Li (李尚哲), a second-year Ph.D. student at UNC Chapel Hill, where I’m fortunate to be advised by Prof. Weitong Zhang. I also collaborate with Prof. Hao Su and Dr. Zhiao Huang at Sudo AI. Previously, I had the privilege of working with Prof. Marco Caccamo and Prof. Nils Thuerey at the Technical University of Munich, as well as Prof. Xinhua Zhang at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Outside research, I enjoy aviation, physics, and mathematics. I’m originally from Guangzhou.
Research interests
I study reinforcement learning and imitation learning, connecting theoretical foundations with algorithms for foundation models and robotic decision-making.
Learning to act
Deep and model-based reinforcement learning; adversarial imitation learning in high-dimensional environments.
Foundations of learning
Theoretical foundations of reinforcement and imitation learning that inform more effective algorithms.
Models & embodiment
Alignment, distillation, and reasoning for foundation models; world models for robotic manipulation and locomotion.
News
One paper has been accepted by IROS 2026 Workshop on Physical World Models for Scaling Embodied AI for Oral Presentation.
One paper has been accepted by Transactions on Machine Learning Research.
One paper has been accepted by ICLR 2026 Workshop on AI with Recursive Self-Improvement.
Earlier news
One paper has been accepted by ICLR 2026 Workshop on Real-World Constrained and Preference-Aligned Generative Models.
One paper has been accepted by ICLR 2026.
One paper has been accepted by AAAI 2026.
One paper has been accepted by NeurIPS 2025 Workshop on Embodied World Models.
One paper has been accepted by ICML 2025.
I’ll be joining UNC Chapel Hill for my PhD, advised by Prof. Weitong Zhang!
One paper has been accepted by ICLR 2025 Workshop on World Models.
Summer intern offer received from Su Lab, UCSD! See you in San Diego in summer if everything goes smoothly!
🎉🎉 Homepage has been set up.
† Equal contribution
Publications
4Quantile Q-Learning: Revisiting Offline Extreme Q-Learning with Quantile Regression
arXivNear-Optimal Second-Order Guarantees for Model-Based Adversarial Imitation Learning
arXivLanguage Model Distillation: A Temporal Difference Imitation Learning Perspective
arXivReward-free World Models for Online Imitation Learning
arXivPreprints
4When EOS Tokens Disagree: Understanding Length Inflation in On-Policy Distillation
arXivWatchAct: A Benchmark for Behavior-Grounded Robot Manipulation
arXivProvably Efficient Offline-to-Online Value Adaptation with General Function Approximation
arXivAugmenting Offline Reinforcement Learning with State-only Interactions
arXivWorkshop papers
4A Recipe for Efficient Sim-to-Real Transfer in Manipulation with Online Imitation-Pretrained World Models
arXivYour Self-Play Algorithm is Secretly an Adversarial Imitator: Understanding LLM Self-Play through the Lens of Imitation Learning
arXivImitation from Observations with Trajectory-Level Generative Embeddings
arXivCoupled Distributional Random Expert Distillation for World Model Online Imitation Learning
arXivProfessional service
Conference reviewer / program committee
AAAI 2026/2027, ICLR 2026, ICRA 2026, ICML 2026, NeurIPS 2026.
Journal reviewer
Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR).
Teaching
DATA 522
Practical Deep Learning Systems
Teaching Assistant
DATA 110
Introduction to Data Science
Teaching Assistant
Writing
Articles in ChinesePhysics23 articles
- Propagation of electromagnetic waves in the presence of conductors
- Solution of Laplace’s equation in spherical coordinate system
- Gauge transformations and D’Alembert’s equation
- Maxwell stress tensor and electromagnetic field momentum
- Electrodynamics of tensor forms
- Geodesic equations, affine connections and covariant differentiation
- Intrinsic time variations, geodesic equations advanced
- Riemann curvature tensor
- Curvature advanced and Bianchi Constant Equation
- Energy-Momentum tensor and Einstein field equations
- Relativistic electrodynamics and electromagnetic analogies
- Harmonic coordinate condition
- Energy, momentum and angular momentum of a gravitational field
- Schwarzschild metric and Schwarzschild black hole
- Gravitational wave
- Gravitational wave advanced
- Universal definition of the action and energy tensor
- Energy-Momentum tensor advanced and gravitational action
- Killing vector fields and maximal symmetric spaces
- Lie group and Lie algebra
- Quantum Lorentz transformations and Poincaré algebra
- Single particle state
- Parity and time reversal