Yichi Zhang

ByteDance (China) · United States

Unclaimed · AI-structured profileOpenAlex

Early-career AI researcher spanning long-context multimodal agent benchmarks and generative search advertising.

papers here

reviewed by Evolve

first-author

corresponding

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works · OpenAlex

h-index · OpenAlex

Bibliometric figures come from OpenAlex (2026-10-15) and cover the author's entire public record, not just the papers listed here. Reproducibility signal comes from Evolve's own reviews.

Research profile

Output—

This axis measures cumulative publication volume and productivity trajectory. Evolve lacks sufficient per-work records to score it: the snapshot lists only 28 recent-3-year works and 2025–2026 counts, with no complete career output list, so output stays unscored rather than estimated.

Impact—

Impact measures citation influence — h-index, i10-index, and citation flow into later work. The recorded h-index of 2 and i10-index of 1 are the only signals available, and Evolve's citation-impact dimension lacks sufficient data for a score, so no estimate is offered.

Focus0/100

The focus score is 0/100, reflecting wide dispersion: fieldDist splits evenly between artificial intelligence (long-context multimodal evaluation) and information retrieval/computational advertising, while OpenAlex topics span five clusters — multimodal ML applications (11), topic modeling (6), few-shot/domain adaptation (5), and robotics/manipulation (4 each). Work currently spreads across distinct problem areas rather than concentrating.

Collaboration61/100

Collaboration scores 61/100. The profile records 20 distinct coauthors over the recent three-year window across 28 works. Recurring names include Joyce Chai, Jiayuan Mao, Ziqiao Ma, Zengqing Wu, Yao Fu, Run Peng, Zinnia Nie, Jing Ding, and Yinpei Dai. Both catalog papers place Zhang in a middle author position without corresponding authorship, consistent with a contributing collaborator role.

Activity98/100

Activity scores 98/100, the strongest axis. countsByYear shows 2 works in 2025 rising to 26 in 2026, and 28 works fall within the recent three-year window — meaning nearly all recorded output clusters in 2026. This is an unusually steep ramp for an early-stage OpenAlex record and drives the near-maximal activity score.

Reproducibility38/100

Reproducibility scores 38/100, computed from Evolve's reviews of 2 papers (reproMean 38). SIMLIFE is rated medium readiness, but its headline numbers rely on oracle-filtered logs and LLM video summaries; UniPolicy is rated low, with credible A/B gains yet no significance tests or released code. Evidence base is thin, so treat as provisional.

Research summary

Yichi Zhang is an early-career AI researcher whose public OpenAlex record spans two distinct problem areas: long-context multimodal evaluation for human-agent interaction, and generative search advertising. No ORCID is linked, so the profile is name-resolved from public bibliographic data. Bibliometric signals point to a very recent and steep output ramp: countsByYear records 2 works in 2025 and 26 in 2026, with 28 works inside the recent three-year window and an activity score of 98/100. Citation-based metrics remain minimal (h-index 2, i10-index 1), and the output and impact dimensions are not yet scored due to insufficient data. Focus scores 0/100, consistent with the even fieldDist split between artificial intelligence (long-context multimodal evaluation) and information retrieval/computational advertising, and with OpenAlex topics spread across multimodal machine learning applications (11), topic modeling (6), few-shot/domain adaptation (5), and robotics-related clusters (4 each) — a breadth that may partly reflect homonym aggregation. Evolve has reviewed two 2026 papers: SIMLIFE, a Sims-4 benchmark for long-horizon human-agent partnership with medium reproducibility readiness, and UniPolicy, a generative-retrieval advertising system with objective-specific policies and low reproducibility readiness. Collaboration scores 61/100, with 20 distinct coauthors including Joyce Chai, Jiayuan Mao, Zengqing Wu, and Yao Fu; both reviewed papers list Zhang in a middle, non-corresponding position.

Collaboration pattern

Collaboration scores 61/100 with 20 distinct coauthors across the recent three-year window. The most frequent listed coauthors are Joyce Chai (appearing twice in the frequency list), Jiayuan Mao, Ziqiao Ma, Zengqing Wu, Yao Fu, Run Peng, Zinnia Nie, Jing Ding, and Yinpei Dai. Both reviewed papers place Zhang in a middle, non-corresponding author position — SIMLIFE alongside an embodied-agent/academic cluster and UniPolicy on an industry advertising project — suggesting a contributing collaborator embedded in more than one working group.

Research keywords

long-context understandingmultimodal benchmarkingvideo understandingbehavioral pattern recognitionembodied agentscounterfactual reasoninggenerative retrievalsemantic IDssearch advertisingmulti-objective optimizationreinforcement learningmultimodal machine learning

Highlights

SIMLIFE: a Sims-4 benchmark for long-horizon human-agent partnership
Evolve's review calls it a solid benchmark probing latent behavioral-rule understanding with rigorous design, but flags that headline numbers use oracle-filtered logs and LLM video summaries; reproducibility readiness: medium.
UniPolicy: objective-specific policies for generative search advertising
Evolve's review notes UniPolicy decouples eCPM, CTR and relevance into separate policies atop one generative retriever, with credible A/B gains but no significance tests or released code; reproducibility readiness: low.
2026 output surge to 26 recorded works
OpenAlex countsByYear records 2 works in 2025 and 26 in 2026, with 28 works in the recent three-year window — an activity score of 98/100 on an otherwise early-stage record.

Timeline

2025First recorded output appears in the OpenAlex countsByYear record: 2 works.
2026SIMLIFE, a benchmark for long-horizon human-agent partnership, appears on arXiv; Evolve rates reproducibility readiness medium.
2026UniPolicy, objective-specific policies for generative search advertising, appears on arXiv; Evolve rates reproducibility readiness low.
2026Recorded output reaches 26 works in 2026 (28 over the recent three-year window), driving an activity score of 98/100.

Papers in the Evolve catalog

Frequent co-authors

Run Peng×1 Zinnia Nie×1 Jing Ding×1 Yinpei Dai×1 Yichi Zhang×1 Zengqing Wu×1 Yao Fu×1 Ziqiao Ma×1 Jiayuan Mao×1 Joyce Chai×1 Yichi Zhang×1 Joyce Chai×1

About this profile

This profile is AI-structured by Evolve.Pub from public bibliographic data (OpenAlex) and Evolve's own paper reviews. It is not written or endorsed by the researcher unless the profile is claimed. Radar dimensions are computed from real bibliometrics with fixed formulas — raw figures are shown alongside; missing dimensions mean insufficient data, never zero. Errors? Claim the profile to correct or hide it.

All bibliometrics come from a single OpenAlex snapshot; no ORCID is linked and 'Yichi Zhang' is a common name, so this profile is name-resolved from public bibliographic data and may blend homonymous records — the coauthor list itself contains 'Yichi Zhang'.
Output and impact dimensions are unscored for insufficient data; the only citation signals present are h-index 2 and i10-index 1.
Only two papers have been independently reviewed by Evolve; the remaining works behind the 2025–2026 counts are unreviewed.
Affiliation metadata is inconsistent: the record lists ByteDance (China) with country US, while Evolve's UniPolicy verdict attributes that system to Meituan; employer information should be treated as unverified.