Research
These days, I'm interested in reasoning, memory, and statistical approaches to LM post-training and test-time compute.
If you're a Stanford student interested in (1) extensions of Neural Garbage Collection (NGC) or (2) statsy post-training ideas, feel free to reach out at firstname.middle_initial.lastname@stanford.edu!
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Selected Publications
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Michael Y. Li, Jubayer Ibn Hamid, Emily B. Fox, Noah D. Goodman
arXiv preprint, 2026
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Michael Y. Li, Emily B. Fox, Noah D. Goodman
ICML, 2024
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Dieterich Lawson*, Michael Y. Li*, Scott W. Linderman
NeurIPS, 2023
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Michael Y. Li, Erin Grant, Thomas L. Griffiths
UAI, 2023
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View all publications
GIANTS: Generative Insight Anticipation from Scientific Literature
Joy He-Yueya, Anikait Singh, Ge Gao, Michael Y. Li, Sherry Yang, Chelsea Finn, Emma Brunskill, Noah D. Goodman
arXiv preprint, 2026
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Automated Hypothesis Validation with Agentic Sequential Falsifications
Kexin Huang*, Ying Jin*, Ryan Li*, Michael Y. Li, Emmanuel Candès, Jure Leskovec
ICML, 2025
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LLMs + sequential hypothesis tests with Type-I error control
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BoxingGym: Benchmarking Progress in Automated Experimental Design and Model Discovery
Kanishk Gandhi*, Michael Y. Li*, Lyle Goodyear,Louise Li, Aditi Bhaskar, Mohammed Zaman,Noah D. Goodman
NeurIPS Workshop on Scaling Environments for Agents, 2025
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A benchmark for LLM driven experimental design and model discovery
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CriticAL: Model Criticism Automation with Language Models
Michael Y. Li, Noah D. Goodman, Emily B. Fox
NeurIPS Statistical Foundations of LLMs and Foundation Models Workshop, 2024
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Automated Bayesian model criticism.
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What Should Embeddings Embed? Transformers Represent Latent Generating Distributions
Liyi Zhang, Michael Y. Li, Thomas L. Griffiths
preprint, 2024
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We study the embeddings of transformers through the lens of predictive sufficient statistics.
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Automated Statistical Model Discovery with Language Models
Michael Y. Li, Emily B. Fox, Noah D. Goodman
ICML, 2024
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We propose a language model driven automated statistical model discovery system.
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NAS-X: Neural Adaptive Smoothing via Twisting
Dieterich Lawson* Michael Y. Li*, Scott W. Linderman
NeurIPS, 2023
Advances in Approximate Bayesian Inference, 2023 [Oral Presentation]
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Twisted Sequential Monte Carlo for inference in latent variables models.
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Why think step-by-step? Reasoning emerges from the locality of experience
Ben Prystawski, Michael Y. Li, Noah D. Goodman
NeurIPS, 2023 [Oral Presentation, top 0.5%]
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We empirically and theoretically study when chain-of-thought reasoning emerges in large language models.
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Gaussian Process Surrogate Models for Neural Networks
Michael Y. Li, Erin Grant, Thomas L. Griffiths
UAI, 2023
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Using Gaussian processes to approximate neural networks.
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Learning to Learn Functions
Michael Y. Li, Fred Callaway, William D. Thompson, Ryan P. Adams, Thomas L. Griffiths
Cognitive Science, 2023
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We propose hierarchical Bayesian models of how people learn to learn functions and validate our model in behavioral experiments.
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