PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Lina Yao

Also known as Yao Lina

Lina Yao is a computer scientist at UNSW who builds data-efficient machine learning for recommender systems and human-machine interaction, and now works on LLM agents. She studied at Shandong University, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications and the University of Adelaide, where she completed a PhD in 2014, and joined UNSW in 2016 as a lecturer and ARC DECRA fellow. She leads UNSW's Data Dynamics Lab, founded in 2016; in 2017 she coauthored a survey of deep learning based recommender systems, and she won the 2021 Women in AI Award for AI in Cyber Security and the 2023 CORE Award for outstanding Research Contribution. From 2022 to 2025, she was Senior Principal Research Scientist and Science Lead for Translational Machine Learning at CSIRO. She is a Professor and ARC Future Fellow at UNSW, where her research focuses on LLM reasoning and LLM agents.

Now at
UNSW Sydney and CSIRO

Timeline

  1. 2002–2014

    Degrees in China and Adelaide

    She earns a bachelor's degree at Shandong University in 2002 and a master's degree in electronic and communication engineering at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2007, and she works as an engineer at China Unicom in Shandong. At the University of Adelaide, she completes a master's degree in 2010 and a PhD in 2014, both in computer science. Bill Gates's book The Road Ahead is what inspires her to devote her studies to computer science and engineering.

  2. 2014–2015

    Postdoc and lecturer at Adelaide

    She is an ARC research associate (postdoc) at the University of Adelaide in 2014 and a lecturer there in 2015.

  3. 2016–2018

    Founding the Data Dynamics Lab

    She joins UNSW in 2016 as a lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and holds an ARC DECRA fellowship from 2016 to 2018 for the project Effective Recommendation for Web of Things. The Data Dynamics Lab (D2 Lab), founded in 2016, is the research group she leads; it works on novel ways of human-machine interactions.

  4. 2017

    A deep learning recommender survey

    She coauthors "Deep Learning based Recommender System: A Survey and New Perspectives" with Shuai Zhang, Aixin Sun and Yi Tay, first posted to arXiv in 2017. The survey reviews deep learning based recommendation models and devises a taxonomy of them, and ACM Computing Surveys accepts it.

  5. 2021

    Women in AI cybersecurity award

    In 2021, she wins first place in the AI in Cyber Security category at the inaugural Women in AI Awards, as a Scientia Associate Professor in UNSW's School of Computer Science and Engineering. The award honours her work on identifying cyber threats, especially false information on social media, and her team works on detecting misinformation such as fake reviews and clickbait.

  6. October 2022–November 2025

    Science lead at CSIRO

    In October 2022, she joins CSIRO as Senior Principal Research Scientist and Science Lead for Translational Machine Learning, and holds both roles until November 2025. From September 2022 to October 2025, she also keeps a conjoint professorship at UNSW.

  7. 2023

    A CORE research contribution award

    She wins the 2023 CORE Award for outstanding Research Contribution from the Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia. The award honours her work on learning contextualised actionable intelligence from sparse, diverse and dynamic multi-source data, with applications in healthcare informatics, cyber security, transportation, defence, Industry 4.0 and FinTech.

  8. Since 2025

    Professor and ARC Future Fellow

    In July 2025, she wins an ARC Future Fellowship (Level 3) for the project Advancing Steerable LLM-powered Agents for Dynamic Multimodal Interactions, which runs from 2026 to 2029. She becomes a Professor at UNSW in November 2025 and a Visiting Scientist at CSIRO in January 2026. Her research spans few-shot learning, reinforcement learning, generative AI and LLMs, with a focus on LLM reasoning and LLM agents.

Career

  1. Since 2022CSIROSenior Principal Research Scientist and Science Lead for Translational Machine Learning, Visiting Scientist
  2. Since 2016UNSW SydneyLecturer, Founder
  3. 2014–2015University of AdelaideARC Research Associate (postdoc), Lecturer
  4. China UnicomEngineer

Education

  1. 2014University of AdelaidePhD in computer science
  2. 2010University of AdelaideMaster's degree in computer science
  3. 2007Nanjing University of Posts and TelecommunicationsMaster's degree in electronic and communication engineering
  4. 2002Shandong UniversityBachelor's degree

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes UNSW Sydney. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes UNSW Sydney. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes CSIRO. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes UNSW Sydney. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Lina Yao yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Professor Lina Yao unsw.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. This award-winning engineer turns big data into useful AI applications - create digital createdigital.org.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Professor Lina Yao | UNSW Research research.unsw.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. [1707.07435] Deep Learning based Recommender System: A Survey and New Perspectives arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. UNSW Engineering duo honoured at Women in AI Awards unsw.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. www.linayao.com - Home page linayao.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Associate Professor Lina Yao acsw.core.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.