Undergraduate at Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute - UC SanDiego
Profile photo credit to Scott Yang at the Salk Institute, taken at SfN 2025.
About Me
Hi! My name is Kaiwen Bian and I am a 4th year undergraduate student at UC SanDiego double majoring in Data Science and Cognitive Behavoral Neuroscience.
Representation is all you need: from building embodied control models to understanding the human brain, everything comes down to using the right data and finding the right space in which the problem becomes simple. I like to view puzzles in different domain with a computational lens and build tools that can learn such right representation. My research interest mostly focus on solving interesting yet computationally complex problems related to embodied agents, representation learning, and computational neuroscience.
Outside of my academic life, I enjoy skateboarding, diving into the world of exercise physiology, and immersing myself in the serenity of the natural world
Journey
Research Intern
Developing computationally efficient deep RL imitation systems (Mimic-MJX) for bio-mechanically realistic agents, discovering topological structure in embodied behavior spaces (TopoMimic), and building discrete action selection systems (Motor Decisions) for full-body motor control.
Visiting Research Scholar
Creating latent dynamical models for planning and generating bio-mechanically realistic behaviors using deep state-space modeling methods. Co-advised on the Motor Decisions project from Salk.
B.S. Data Science · B.S. Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience
Graph compositional abstraction for molecular generation (MOSAIC) and topological analysis of embodied agent behaviors. Co-advised on the TopoMimic project from Salk.