Yifan Luo
Yifan Luo

Yifan Luo

B.S. Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignUIUC

Expected May 2028 4.00 GPA James Scholar Honors Student

I love building ML projects that can benefit different people. Currently, I’m working on Framelight, an app that guides people to take better photos in real time. I’m also doing research on visuomotor learning policies, data collection, and benchmarking in the RoboTouch Lab under Professor Wenzhen Yuan. Previously, I conducted research on RAG for long-document QA in the Forward Data Lab under Professor Kevin Chang.

Right now I’m interested in computer vision, and I also love to work on robotics, specifically robot learning policies.

I’m always excited to learn new skills, especially on the systems side, including distributed systems, ML infrastructure, and data pipelines. You never know how much you’ll enjoy something unless you’ve tried it!

News

  1. At Cal Hacks 13 we built memos; I built its vision pipeline.

  2. Framelight is live on the App Store and Google Play.

  3. Wrapped up my Forward Data Lab study: passage order alone moves RAG accuracy about 4–5 points.

  4. My World Cup forecasts finished #17 of 4,013 in the Jump Trading Probability Cup.

  5. On a real UR5e, policies I trained grasped an Allen key and turned a knob.

  6. At the Berkeley AI Hackathon we built Rem; I built its video-to-3D reconstruction.

  7. Named to the Dean’s List for Spring 2026, my second term in a row.

  8. My robot-learning poster won URSA’s Best Research Poster Award.

  9. Framelight won a Hoveida Foundation Prize at the Cozad New Venture Challenge.

  10. Presented my RAG study at the Illinois Undergraduate Research Symposium.

  11. Joined RoboTouch Lab and was named a James Scholar.

Projects

  1. Framelight: coaching the shot before it’s taken

    Technical lead  – present

    Hoveida Foundation Prize Cozad New Venture Challenge

    Live on the App Store and Google Play. I led its 15-person team, designed its on-device guidance loop and trained its composition model.

  2. Imitation learning on a real UR5e, from capture to rollout

    Built it end to end RoboTouch Lab  –

    URSA Best Research Poster Award

    I built a pipeline from 500+ demonstrations to diffusion policies; after my fixes, ones I trained on lab data grasped an Allen key and turned a knob.

  3. memos: walking back into a moment, together

    Vision pipeline and integration Cal Hacks 13

    I built the pipeline that turns a Ray-Ban Meta clip into a 3D scene you walk back into with friends, on a Quest, a phone or a laptop.

  4. Showing where each benchmark object goes, in AR

    Sole author, from tag detection to overlay RoboTouch Lab  –

    I built a ROS 2 tool that finds a printed AprilTag and draws the benchmark layout over live video.

  5. PhotoGleam: Gemini picks the edits for each photo

    Sole developer  –

    First Place, Mobile and Web IgniteCS Programming Expo

    A photo app on both app stores: Gemini writes a set of named filters for each photo, and my server applies them.

  6. Calibrated World Cup forecasts, run by an agent

    Sole author Jump Trading Probability Cup  –

    #17 of 4,013 overall #5 in the knockout stage

    I built an engine that prices 65 types of match question from betting odds, and ran it with a Claude Code agent for 38 days.

  7. Same chunks, different order: context assembly for long-document RAG

    Sole author of both harnesses Forward Data Lab  –

    I built two controlled RAG harnesses and showed passage order alone moves accuracy about 4–5 points: up on QuALITY, down on ContractNLI.

More projects

  1. Rem, at the Berkeley AI Hackathon: I owned the video-to-3D reconstruction stage (ffmpeg → COLMAP → gsplat) in a team of five.

  2. Space and Shapes: two p5.js pieces, ‘The Doorway’ and ‘Crosshatched’.

Experience

  1.  – present

    Framelight

    Technical lead

    Led a 15-person team to ship a camera app that coaches your framing on the phone, live on the App Store and Google Play.

  2.  – present

    RoboTouch Lab, UIUC

    Undergraduate researcher Prof. Wenzhen Yuan

    Built an imitation-learning pipeline for a UR5e arm, from handheld demonstrations to diffusion policies deployed on the real robot.

  3.  –

    Forward Data Lab, UIUC

    Research assistant

    Built two RAG harnesses and evaluated 10+ published methods in them.

  4.  –

    WideAccel Communication

    Assistant network engineer

    Ran daily network monitoring and built the company website.

  5.  –

    Pioneer Academics

    Cryptography researcher Prof. Suleyman Uludag

    Wrote a 45-page thesis benchmarking 9 NIST post-quantum algorithms.

Education

  1. (expected)

    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    B.S. Computer Science 4.00 GPA James Scholar Dean’s List

    Fall 2026: Machine Perception (CS 498), Algorithms and Models of Computation (CS 374) and Computer Architecture.

    Languages: C++, Python, Java, TypeScript, JavaScript, Rust, Dart, Kotlin.

Awards

Research and academic honors

  1. URSA Best Research Poster Award, for visuomotor policy learning

  2. Dean’s List, Fall 2025 and Spring 2026

  3. James Scholar Honors Program, The Grainger College of Engineering

Competitions and prizes

  1. Jump Trading Probability Cup: #17 of 4,013 overall; #5 in the knockout stage

  2. Hoveida Foundation Commitment to Entrepreneurship Prize, Cozad New Venture Challenge (Framelight)

  3. First Place, Mobile and Web, IgniteCS Programming Expo (PhotoGleam)

Graduation awards

  1. Governor General’s Bronze Academic Medal, highest graduating average

  2. Rodger Allan Mathematics Award, top math student in the school board

  3. Vishva & Kamlesh Sharma Math Award

  4. DSBN Excellence in Education Award, top all-round graduating student

Show all 23 awardsShow fewer

Mathematics contests

  1. Caribou Mathematics Cup, top 4% worldwide and 22nd in Canada

  2. Canadian Senior Mathematics Contest, Certificate of Distinction

  3. Hypatia Contest, Certificate of Distinction and School Champion

  4. Fermat Contest, Certificate of Distinction and School Champion

  5. –

    Euclid Contest, Certificate of Distinction

  6. –

    Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge, Performance with Distinction

  7. Cayley Contest, Honour Roll (214th of 19,654), Certificate of Distinction and School Champion

  8. Canadian Senior Mathematics Contest, Certificate of Distinction and School Champion

  9. Galois Contest, Certificate of Distinction and School Champion

  10. Pascal Contest, Certificate of Distinction and School Champion

  11. Canadian Intermediate Mathematics Contest, Certificate of Distinction

Chess

  1. Ontario Chess Challenge, Top 10 Finalist

  2. DSBN Chess Tournament, First Place