Hi, this is Tianjian. I am currently a first-year PhD student at ArkLab, HKUST(GZ), where I am supervised by Prof. Xin Tong. My research lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI) and Language Models (LMs). Specifically, I am passionate about the following questions:
- How can we foster synchronous human-AI collaboration that enhances productivity while preserving user agency?
- How can AI reveal users’ unknown unknowns to augment human cognition?
- How can we evaluate, elicit, and enhance models’ intrinsic cooperativity, proactivity, and guidance?
Additionally, I am interested in empirical research in HCI and AI, such as understanding people in HCI and evaluation in AI.
Previously, I received the bacholar degree in Sun Yat-sen University, where I am supervised by Prof. Xiaojun Quan in LLMs and Prof. Zhenhui Peng in HCI.
🔥 News
- 2026.04.07: One paper is accepted by ACL 2026! Thanks for my supervisor and co-authors!
- 2026.04.05: Will Attend CHI 2026 at Barcelona!
- 2025.11.20: Attend ICHEC 2025 in Singapore.
- 2025.08.20: Join HKUST(GZ) as a new PhD student.
- 2025.06.30: Graudate from SYSU! Thanks for my advisors, collaborators, and friends!
Publications
ProactiveEval: A Unified Evaluation Framework for Proactive Dialogue Agents
Tianjian Liu, Fanqi Wan, Jiajian Guo, Xiaojun Quan
Proposes a unified evaluation framework to benchmark target planning and guidance capabilities in proactive dialogue agents.
Compeer: A generative conversational agent for proactive peer support
Tianjian Liu, Hongzheng Zhao, Yuheng Liu, Xingbo Wang, Zhenhui Peng
Develops a proactive agent that can provide personalized caring and self-disclosure with the user, improving peer support effectiveness and user engagement.
Honors and Awards
- 2025 - 2029, Postgraduate Studentship, Fok Ying Tung Graduate School, HKUST(GZ).
- 2023, 2024, The second-grade scholarship. Sun Yat-sen University.
Educations
- 2025.08 - present, PhD student in Computational Media and Arts, HKUST(GZ).
- 2021.09 - 2025.06, Bacholar in School of Computer Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University.
Life
I maintain a Chinese Blog for research reflections or informal notes.
I am fan of ACGN (Animations, Comics, Games, and Novels). Some awesome works are not only a source of joy and relaxation, but may also bring some encouragement for my research :). I am also dedicated to observing, using and building AI tools or communities related to the ACGN.
These following works have moved and encouraged me: