Mian Zhang

Research

I work on reinforcement learning and synthetic data to improve the capabilities and reliability of LLM/VLM agents. I am broadly interested in research directions that contribute to AGI.

Papers

* equal contribution

Spine-Branch Coordination for Multi-agent Computer Use

Mian Zhang, Manasi Sharma, Sheng Zhang, Minlai Yang, Kejian Shi, Ying Liu, Zhiyu Zoey Chen, Daniel Yue Zhang

Preprint

Project Page

Mitigating Exploration Bias in RL for Multi-Instruction Following

Mian Zhang, Yueqin Yin, Kaiyu He, Peilin Wu, Xinlu Zhang, Mingyuan Zhou, Zhiyu Zoey Chen

EMNLP 2026

code

LogicIF: Towards Complex Logic Instruction Following

Mian Zhang, Shujian Liu, Sixun Dong, Ming Yin, Yebowen Hu, Xun Wang, Steven Ma, Song Wang, Sathish Reddy Indurthi, Haoyun Deng, Zhiyu Zoey Chen, Kaiqiang Song

COLM 2026

code and benchmark

MMTok: Multimodal Coverage Maximization for Efficient Inference of VLMs

Sixun Dong, Juhua Hu, Mian Zhang, Ming Yin, Yanjie Fu, Qi Qian

ICLR 2026

Project Page

HiPRAG: Hierarchical Process Rewards for Efficient Agentic Retrieval Augmented Generation

Peilin Wu, Mian Zhang, Kun Wan, Wentian Zhao, Kaiyu He, Xinya Du, Zhiyu Chen

ICLR 2026

code

Search Wisely: Mitigating Sub-optimal Agentic Searches By Reducing Uncertainty

Mian Zhang*, Peilin Wu*, Xinlu Zhang, Xinya Du, Zhiyu Zoey Chen

EMNLP 2025

code

IDEA: Enhancing the Rule Learning Ability of Large Language Model Agent through Induction, Deduction, and Abduction

Kaiyu He, Mian Zhang, Shuo Yan, Peilin Wu, Zhiyu Zoey Chen

ACL 2025

code and data

Preference Learning Unlocks LLMs' Psycho-Counseling Skills

Mian Zhang, Shaun M. Eack, Zhiyu Zoey Chen

ACL 2026

code/ dataset and models

CBT-Bench: Evaluating Large Language Models on Assisting Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Mian Zhang*, Xianjun Yang*, Xinlu Zhang, Travis Labrum, Jamie C. Chiu, Shaun M. Eack, Fei Fang, William Yang Wang, Zhiyu Zoey Chen

NAACL 2025

dataset

SafeConv: Explaining and Correcting Conversational Unsafe Bahavior

Mian Zhang, Lifeng Jin, Linfeng Song, Haitao Mi, Wenliang Chen, Dong Yu

ACL 2023 (Oral Presentation)

dataset

LiveMCP-101: Stress Testing and Diagnosing MCP-enabled Agents on Challenging Queries

Ming Yin, Dinghan Shen, Silei Xu, Jianbing Han, Sixun Dong, Mian Zhang, Yebowen Hu, Shujian Liu, Simin Ma, Song Wang, Sathish Reddy Indurthi, Xun Wang, Yiran Chen, Kaiqiang Song

Preprint

code and benchmark (coming soon)

LMR-Bench: Evaluating LLM Agent's Ability on Reproducing Language Modeling Research

Shuo Yan, Ziming Luo, Zimu Wang, Ruochen Li, Daoyang Li, Liqiang Jing, Kaiyu He, Peilin Wu, Juntong Ni, George Michalopoulos, Yue Zhang, Ziyang Zhang, Mian Zhang, Zhiyu Chen, Xinya Du

EMNLP 2025

dataset and code

Large Language Models for Disease Diagnosis: A Scoping Review

Shuang Zhou*, Zidu Xu*, Mian Zhang*, Chunpu Xu*, Yawen Guo, Zaifu Zhan, Sirui Ding, Jiashuo Wang, Kaishuai Xu, Yi Fang, Liqiao Xia, Jeremy Yeung, Daochen Zha, Mingquan Lin, Rui Zhang

npj Artificial Intelligence 2025