PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Peng Cui

Also known as 崔鹏

Peng Cui is a computer scientist at Tsinghua University who brings causal thinking into machine learning. He earned his PhD at Tsinghua in 2010 and coauthored A Survey on Network Embedding with Xiao Wang, Jian Pei and Wenwu Zhu in 2017. In 2022, he and Stanford's Susan Athey published a Nature Machine Intelligence perspective that offered stable learning as common ground between causal inference and machine learning. His honours include the ACM China Rising Star Award in 2015, the CCF-IEEE CS Young Scientist Award in 2018, a second prize of China's National Natural Science Award by 2024, and election as an IEEE Fellow in 2026. He is a tenured associate professor in Tsinghua's Department of Computer Science and Technology.

Now at
Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University

Timeline

  1. 2010–2013

    Tsinghua PhD and multimedia awards

    He completes his PhD at Tsinghua University in 2010. His research then wins the ACM Multimedia Grand Challenge Multimodal Award in 2012 and the MMM Best Paper Award in 2013.

  2. 2014–2016

    ACM China Rising Star Award

    His research wins the IEEE ICME Best Paper Award in 2014 and is a SIGKDD Best Paper Finalist in 2014 and 2016. He receives the ACM China Rising Star Award in 2015.

  3. 2017

    A survey on network embedding

    In 2017, he coauthors A Survey on Network Embedding with Xiao Wang, Jian Pei and Wenwu Zhu. The survey reviews network embedding, which assigns network nodes to low-dimensional representations that preserve network structure.

  4. 2018–2020

    Young Scientist Award, ACM Distinguished Member

    He receives the CCF-IEEE CS Young Scientist Award in 2018 and becomes an ACM Distinguished Member in 2020.

  5. 2021–2022

    Stable learning in Nature Machine Intelligence

    In 2021, he coauthors Towards Out-Of-Distribution Generalization: A Survey, a review of how models cope when test data differ from training data. In February 2022, he and Stanford's Susan Athey publish a Nature Machine Intelligence perspective that offers stable learning as common ground between causal inference and machine learning, a combination he has pursued since 2016.

  6. 2024

    Teaching stable learning at DeepLearn

    In July 2024, he is a lecturer at the DeepLearn 2024 school in Porto–Maia, Portugal, with a course on stable learning for out-of-distribution generalization. His honours by 2024 include the second prize of the National Natural Science Award in China and the first prize of the Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education in China.

  7. 2026

    Named an IEEE Fellow

    He joins the 2026 class of IEEE Fellows, cited for contributions to network embedding and social behavioral modeling.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor at Tsinghua

    He is a tenured associate professor in the Lab of Media and Network in Tsinghua University's Department of Computer Science and Technology. His research interests include causally-regularized machine learning, network representation learning and social dynamics modeling.

Career

  1. NowDepartment of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua UniversityAssociate Professor

Education

  1. 2010Tsinghua UniversityPhD

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 Peng Cui. 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 Tsinghua University. 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 median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Tsinghua University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  4. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Tsinghua University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.

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 Peng Cui yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Peng Cui (Cui, Peng)'s Homepage pengcui.thumedialab.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. [1711.08752] A Survey on Network Embedding arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. [2108.13624] Towards Out-Of-Distribution Generalization: A Survey arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Stable learning establishes some common ground between causal inference and machine learning | Nature Machine Intelligence nature.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Peng Cui – DeepLearn 2024 deeplearn.irdta.eu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. IEEE Computer Society Announces 2026 Class of Fellow computer.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. IEEE 2026新晋Fellow名单正式公布 – IEEE中国 cn.ieee.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Peng CUI-Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University cs.tsinghua.edu.cn. Checked 22 October 2026.