Tenghao Huang

I build language-model agents that learn from experience, use tools effectively, and help people tackle complex tasks.

Joining the University of Utah as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2027. I am recruiting Ph.D. students — see hiring details.

Research interests

• LLM agents and post-training: long-horizon planning, tool use, agentic memory, and proactive information gathering.
• Human-centered AI: social reasoning, grounded dialogue, and systems that collaborate effectively with people.
• AI creativity: evaluating creative outputs, generating compelling narratives, and balancing diversity with quality. I coauthored the NAACL tutorial Creative Planning with Language Models.

Background

At USC Viterbi, I worked with Muhao Chen and Jonathan May. I earned my bachelor’s degree at UNC-Chapel Hill, where I worked with Snigdha Chaturvedi and Colin Raffel. I have also interned at Amazon Alexa AI, IBM Research, and Salesforce AI Research. My research has been reported by MIT Technology Review, and I received the EMNLP 2024 Outstanding Paper Award.

Hiring

I am recruiting Ph.D. students to join my lab at the University of Utah in Fall 2027.

• Apply: Use the Kahlert School of Computing Ph.D. application and list me as a potential advisor.
• Get in touch: Email ohara.lab.recruiting@gmail.com with the subject [PRSP PhD] + your current position and institution. A brief note about your research interests and why the lab is a good fit is a great place to start. I may not be able to reply to every message.