Aochong Oliver Li

About Me

Profile picture

Hi đź‘‹! I am Aochong Li (my friends usually call me Oliver), a second-year CS PhD student at Cornell University working with Prof. Tanya Goyal. Before that, I graduated from Columbia where I was advised by Prof. Zhou Yu and Prof. Smaranda Muresan. After college, I spent a year at AQR Capital as a quant researcher under Laura Serban.
Recently, I am excited about developing algorithms for scaling under constrained human data and language model agents under the Big World Hypothesis.
Aside from science, I enjoy seeking insights from contrarian thinkers like Nietzsche, Machiavelli, and Peter Thiel.

What I Am Interested In

  • The beauty of simplicity and inutition. This drew me into AI and Mathematics.
  • I am trying to spend more time working on ambitious ideas, understanding the basics from first principles, and building mental models to handle noise in the world.
  • I love visiting art and history museums around the world—favorites so far are The Met and The British Museum. Lately, I've been learning chess and making swimming a habit.