CV

Contact Information

Name Jinyi Ye
Professional Title CS PhD Student at USC
Email jinyiy@usc.edu
Location 1031 Downey Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089

Interests

Generally: Human-Centered AI, Computational Social Science, NLP
Recently: LLM Social Simulations, Multi-agent Systems, Human-AI Interaction

Education

  • Aug 2024 -

    Los Angeles, CA

    Ph.D. in Computer Science
    University of Southern California
    Computer Science
    • GPA: 3.93/4.0
    • Advisor: Emilio Ferrara, Luca Luceri (co-advisor)
  • Sep 2021 - Jun 2024

    Los Angeles, CA

    M.S. in Data Science
    Tsinghua University + University of Southern California Joint Program
    Communication Data Science
    • GPA: 4.0/4.0; Graduated with High Honors
    • Top Master’s Thesis Award (Tsinghua University)
  • Sep 2017 - Jun 2021

    Beijing, China

    B.A. in Economics; B.A. in Communication & Journalism
    Peking University; Communication University of China
    Economics; Communication & Journalism
    • GPA: 3.85/4.0; GPA: 3.90/4.0; Graduated with High Honors

Industry Experience

  • Jun 2026 -

    San Jose, CA, USA

    Research Intern
    Adobe Research
    Mentors: Dr. Sunav Choudhary, Dr. Doga Dogan, Dr. Ishita Dasgupta
    • Developed MarketingSynth, a behaviorally grounded framework that aligns LLM agents with matched human responses and uses multi-construct calibration to improve synthetic-audience fidelity for marketing simulations.
  • May 2025 - Aug 2025

    Redmond, WA, USA

    Research Intern
    Microsoft Research + Microsoft IDEAS
    Mentor: Dr. Scott Counts
    • Researched multimodal workflows and organizational agentic simulations to understand how generative AI is reshaping work and organizational management.
  • Apr 2024 - Jul 2024

    Beijing, China

    Research Intern
    Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), Social Computing Group
    Mentors: Dr. Fangzhao Wu, Dr. Xing Xie
    • Researched how generative AI can augment human knowledge, learning, and productivity.
  • Feb 2022 - Jun 2022

    Beijing, China

    Data Scientist Intern
    ByteDance (Lark Product Team)
    • Built the financial operations data-modeling module for an internal analytics platform used across the Enterprise Applications department.

Academic Research Experience

  • Aug 2024 -

    Los Angeles, CA

    Research Assistant
    USC HUMANS Lab
    Advised by Emilio Ferrara
    • Social Simulations with LLM Agents: Developed generative-agent simulations that approximate and optimize human decision-making, with validation against real-world data across domains such as political science, public opinion, and malicious social media behavior. Publication in WWW ‘26.
    • Trustworthy AI and AI Safety: Research on algorithmic amplification of partisan bias and the role of AI-generated content (AIGC) during elections. Publications in FAccT ‘25 and HT ‘25.
    • Grants: NSF (#2331722), The Evolution of Language Use in Online Communities
    • Cross-Lab Collaborations: FORTIS Lab
  • Aug 2025 -

    Marina Del Rey, CA

    Research Assistant
    USC ISI SIGNALS Lab
    Advised by Luca Luceri
    • Research on advancing multi-agent simulations with (inverse) reinforcement learning.
    • Grants: DARPA - DSO, Incentive-Driven Prediction of Emergent Phenomena in Complex Social Systems
  • Dec 2022 - Dec 2023

    Los Angeles, CA

    Graduate Student Researcher (Master's)
    USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI)
    Advised by Emilio Ferrara and Luca Luceri
    • Research projects on social networks, misinformation, and susceptibility to online social influence. Publications in WWW ‘24 and ICWSM ‘25.
    • Research on identifying and characterizing cross-platform information diffusion. Publication in ICWSM ‘23.
    • Grants: DARPA (#HR001121C0169), Influence Campaign Awareness and Sensemaking

Awards & Grants

  • 2025 Best Paper Honorable Mention — International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM)
  • 2025 Best Student Paper Honorable Mention — 36th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT)
  • 2025 Best Poster Presentation (Doctoral Student) — USC ShowCAIS 2025
  • 2024 Top Master's Thesis Award (top 5%) — Tsinghua University
  • 2022, 2023 Graduate Student All-Round Excellence Awards (First Level) — Tsinghua University

Invited Talks & Presentations

2026-02-17 Emergent Coordinated Behaviors in Networked LLM Agents — Complex Data Lab (McGill/Mila)
2026-01-23 Simulating the Spiral of Silence with a Network of Generative Agents — Community Twin reading group, University of Maryland
2024-06-24 Measuring and modeling susceptibility to influence in social networks — Intern Tech Talk, Microsoft Research Asia
2024-05-24 Susceptibility to Unreliable Information Sources: Swift Adoption with Minimal Exposure — The Web Conference 2024 (Oral)

Academic Service

Peer Review — NeurIPS 2026, ICWSM 2026, ICWSM 2025, WWW 2025, CIKM 2024
PC Member — WWW 2025 - Web for Good Track
Conference Organization — ICWSM 2026 (Local Chair)

Teaching & Mentoring

I care deeply about mentoring emerging scholars; to support interdisciplinary research and women in science, I prioritize students with STEM + social science backgrounds and female students.
Mentoring: USC Center for Undergraduate Research in Viterbi Engineering (CURVE) Fellowship Program; Google ExploreCSR Program (USC branch)
• 2026 Fall: Amisha Nambiar (B.S. in CS), Moonsoon Park (M.S. in CS)
• 2026 Spring: Esteban Murillo (B.S. in AI for Business), Preyashi Poddar (B.A. in Psychology & Data Science), Kyoungeui Hong (B.S. in CS)
• 2025 Fall: James Yunkai Zhan (B.S. in CS & Applied Math), Blair Ding Chen (B.S. in AI for Business)
• 2025 Spring: Zhiyi Chen (M.S. in Data Science), Beverlyn Tsai (B.S. in CS), Francesca Kubica (B.S. in AI for Business)
• 2024 Fall: Collin Hargreaves (B.A. in Data Science), Shreeya Chand (B.S. in CS)
• 2023 Fall: Ravneet Kaur (M.S. in CS)