DeepThink Lab

Think Deep, Bold, and Different.

Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Michigan, College of Engineering

About the Lab

Broadly speaking, our research interest lies in the intersection of signal processing, data science, machine learning, and numerical optimization. In particular, we are interested in computational methods for learning low-complexity models from high-dimensional data. The current research of our group focuses on (i) the foundations of generative AI (Slides), (ii) deep representation learning (Slides-1, Slides-2), and (iii) machine learning for scientific applications.

Recent News

Talks & Events
Upcoming Workshop: Co-organizing DeLTa 2026 workshop (Deep Generative Model in Machine Learning: Theory, Principle and Efficacy) at ICLR'26
JAN 2026 Invited Talk (Video): Presenting our work at The One World Seminar Series on the Mathematics of Machine Learning on Understanding Generalization of Deep Generative Models based on Low-dimensional Structures
Oct 2025 Tutorial (Website): Presenting a full-day tutorial at ICCV’25 on “Learning Deep Low-Dimensional Models from High-Dimensional Data: From Theory to Practice“,  together with Profs. Yi MaLiyue ShenAtlas WangZhihui Zhu , and Dr. Sam Buchanan
Sep 2025 Lectures: Giving 3 Lectures at IAISS'25: (Lecture I, Lecture II, Lecture III)
Jul 2025 Tutorial (Website): Presenting a 2.5-hour tutorial at ICML’25 on “Harnessing Low Dimensionality in Diffusion Models: From Theory to Practice” with Prof. Liyue Shen and Prof. Yuxin Chen
Research Update
Apr 2025 SIAM News Article on understanding generalization of diffusion models (news)
Awards

Prof. Qing Qu received the 1938E Award in UM College of Engineering , a prestigious CoE award for an assistant professor; awarded annually to one faculty member for excellence in teaching, mentoring, and service.

Jan 2026 Student Award: Can Yaras received a Rising Star Award at CPAL’26
Jun 2025 PI Award: Prof. Qing Qu received the Google Research Scholar Award in machine learning
Mar 2025 Student Awards: Congrats to Can Yaras and Siyi Chen on receiving the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship! (news1, news2)
Group Member News
Jan 2026 Group Member News: Xiao Li successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Li!
May 2025 Group Member News: our lab members (1) Yifu Lu will be joining Princeton ECE as a PhD student, (2) Jinfan Zhou will be joining UChicago CS as a PhD student, (3) Pengyu Li will be joining Duke ECE as a PhD student, (4) Siyi Chen will be joining UMich ECE as a PhD student, (5) Dr. Peng Wang will be joining University of Macau as an assistant professor in Fall 2025.

Acknowledgement