Yougang Lyu

I’m a final year PhD student at the University of Amsterdam . Graduation expected in July 2025. I have been very fortunate to be advised by Prof. Maarten de Rijke and Prof. Zhaochun Ren.

My research focuses on aligning large language models (LLMs) and exploring their applications in information retrieval and recommender systems. I’m particularly interested in bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI research and real-world deployment by advancing the development of trustworthy next-generation language agents.

I am on the job market now! Feel free to reach out if you know of any opportunities!

Publications

Towards Empathetic Conversational Recommender Systems
Xiaoyu Zhang, Ruobing Xie, Yougang Lyu, Xin Xin, Pengjie Ren, Mingfei Liang, Bo Zhang, Zhanhui Kang, Maarten de Rijke, Zhaochun Ren
RecSys 2024 (Full track, Best Full Paper Award ) paper / code

Cognitive Biases in Large Language Models for News Recommendation
Yougang Lyu, Xiaoyu Zhang, Zhaochun Ren, Maarten de Rijke
ROEGEN @ RecSys 2024 paper

MACPO: Weak-to-Strong Alignment via Multi-Agent Contrastive Preference Optimization
Yougang Lyu, Lingyong Yan, Zihan Wang, Dawei Yin, Pengjie Ren, Maarten de Rijke, Zhaochun Ren
ICLR 2025 paper

KnowTuning: Knowledge-aware Fine-tuning for Large Language Models
Yougang Lyu, Lingyong Yan, Shuaiqiang Wang, Haibo Shi, Dawei Yin, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Maarten de Rijke, Zhaochun Ren
EMNLP 2024 Main paper

Multi-Defendant Legal Judgment Prediction via Hierarchical Reasoning
Yougang Lyu, Jitai Hao, Zihan Wang, Kai Zhao, Shen Gao, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Fang Wang, Zhaochun Ren
EMNLP 2023 Findings paper

Feature-Level Debiased Natural Language Understanding
Yougang Lyu, Piji Li, Yechang Yang, Maarten de Rijke, Pengjie Ren, Yukun Zhao, Dawei Yin, Zhaochun Ren
AAAI 2023 Oral paper

Improving legal judgment prediction through reinforced criminal element extraction
Yougang Lyu, Zihan Wang, Zhaochun Ren, Pengjie Ren, Zhumin Chen, Xiaozhong Liu, Yujun Li, Hongsong Li, Hongye Song
IPM 2022 paper

Oral Presentations

• ROGEN@Recsys 2024 - bari, Italy
  Title: Cognitive Biases in Large Language Models for News Recommendation

• AAAI 2023 - WASHINGTON, DC, USA
  Title: Feature-Level Debiased Natural Language Understanding

• EMNLP 2023 - Singapore
  Title: Multi-Defendant Legal Judgment Prediction via Hierarchical Reasoning

Invited Talks

• University of Glasgow - Online, Feb 2025
  Title: Aligning Language Models with Human Understanding and Behavior

Awards

Best Full Paper Award, Recsys 2024, 2024.10

Best Full Paper Nomination Award, CCIR 2023, 2023.11

Dean scholarship, Shandong University, 2021.11

First-class academic scholarship, Shandong University, 2024 & 2023 & 2022