Fei Liu

Postdoc Researcher

Department of Physics, University of Zurich &
Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich

I am a Postdoc researcher in the Department of Physics, University of Zurich and the Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich, working with Prof. Nicola Serra and Prof. Alessio Figalli.

Previously I was a Postdoc Fellow in Prof. Qingfu Zhang's Group, Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong. I completed my PhD at CityU supervised by Prof. Qingfu Zhang, and my master's and bachelor's degrees at Northwestern Polytechnical University supervised by Prof. Zhonghua Han.

My research interests include automatic algorithm design, artificial intelligence, optimization algorithms, and their applications to real-world problems.

News

2026.02 We won the Champion of the CVRPLib BKS Competition using Automated Algorithm Design.
2026.02 We won the Champion of the GECCO Competition on LLM for Evolutionary Algorithm Design.
2026.01 Our survey paper "A Systematic Survey on Large Language Models for Algorithm Design" has been accepted by ACM Computing Surveys.
2025.10 Gave a keynote talk at IJCCI 2025.
2025.06 Presented a Tutorial on Automated Algorithm Design with LLMs at CEC 2025. Slides available here.
2025.03 Presented a Tutorial on Algorithm Design with LLMs at EMO 2025. Slides available here.
2025.01 Platform LLM4AD received the IEEE FLAME Second Prize (sole recipient).
2024.12 Paper "LLM4AD: A Platform for Algorithm Design with Large Language Model" is online.
2024.10 Survey paper "A Systematic Survey on Large Language Models for Algorithm Design" is online.
2024.09 "Evolve Cost-aware Acquisition Functions Using Large Language Models" nominated as PPSN 2024 Best Paper Candidate.
2024.08 Champion, IEEE HK CI Postgraduate Student Research Paper Competition 2024.
2024.05 "Evolution of Heuristics: Towards Efficient Automatic Algorithm Design using LLM" accepted at ICML 2024 (Oral, top 1.5%).

Selected Publications

Full list on Google Scholar · * equal contribution

2026

ACM Computing Surveys

A Systematic Survey on Large Language Models for Algorithm Design

Fei Liu, Yiming Yao, Ping Guo, Zhiyuan Yang, Xi Lin, Zhe Zhao, Xialiang Tong, Kun Mao, Zhichao Lu, Zhenkun Wang, Mingxuan Yuan, Qingfu Zhang

ACM Computing Surveys, 2026
AAAI 2026 Oral

EoH-S: Evolution of Heuristic Set Using LLMs for Automated Heuristic Design

Fei Liu, Yilu Liu*, Qingfu Zhang, Xialiang Tong, Mingxuan Yuan

AAAI, 2026

2025

AAAI 2025 Oral

Multi-objective Evolution of Heuristic Using Large Language Model

Shunyu Yao*, Fei Liu*, Xi Lin, Zhichao Lu, Zhenkun Wang, Qingfu Zhang

AAAI, 2025

2024

ICML 2024 Oral · Top 1.5%

Evolution of Heuristics: Towards Efficient Automatic Algorithm Design Using Large Language Model

Fei Liu, Xialiang Tong, Mingxuan Yuan, Xi Lin, Fu Luo, Zhenkun Wang, Zhichao Lu, Qingfu Zhang

ICML, 2024
KDD 2024

Multi-task Learning for Routing Problem with Cross-problem Zero-shot Generalization

Fei Liu, Xi Lin, Qingfu Zhang, Xialiang Tong, Mingxuan Yuan

SIGKDD, 2024

Invited Talks

2026.08 Workshop Keynote: "Automated Algorithm Design with Large Language Model" — DSO: Data Science Meets Optimisation, IJCAI 2026 Workshop
2025.10 Conference Keynote: "Automated Algorithm Design with Large Language Models" — IJCCI 2025
2025.06 IEEE Webinar: Large Language Model for Algorithm Design — Video & Slides
2025.05 基于大模型的自动算法设计 — NICE Seminar. Video (Chinese)

Honors & Awards

2026.02 Champion, CVRPLib BKS Competition (Automated Algorithm Design track)
2025.09 Champion, GECCO LLM for Evolutionary Algorithm Design Competition
2025.01 IEEE FLAME Competition 2024 — Second Prize (sole recipient)
2024.08 Champion, IEEE HK CI Postgraduate Student Research Paper Competition 2024
2021.03 Gold Award, EMO 2021 HUAWEI Logistic Competition
2020.03 Outstanding Master's Thesis, CSAA

Services

Editorial & Program Committee

Associate Editor IEEE Intelligent Computational Letters
Senior PC International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)

Workshop Organization

2026.08 Co-Chair, LEAD: The First International Workshop on Learning-assisted Algorithm Design — IJCAI 2026 Workshop

Tutorials

2026.08 LLMs for Optimization: From Automated Modeling to Algorithmic Discovery — IJCAI 2026 Tutorial
2025.06 Tutorial on Automated Algorithm Design with LLMs — CEC 2025. Slides: PDF
2025.03 Tutorial on Algorithm Design with LLMs — EMO 2025. Slides: PDF

Experience

2026.02 – present
Postdoc Researcher
University of Zurich & ETH Zurich
2025.02 – 2026.01
Postdoc Fellow
City University of Hong Kong

Education

2020 – 2025
PhD, Computer Science
City University of Hong Kong
2017 – 2020
Master's Degree
Northwestern Polytechnical University
2013 – 2017
Bachelor's Degree
Northwestern Polytechnical University