PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Yue Lu

Yue Lu is a Harvard engineer and applied mathematician whose theoretical work studies how attention models learn from examples in context. A Shanghai native, he earned an undergraduate degree at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and master's and doctoral degrees at Illinois in 2007, then joined Harvard after postdoctoral work at EPFL in 2010. He received the ECE Illinois Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2015 and gained tenure at Harvard in 2019. He became a Harvard College Professor and an IEEE Fellow in 2024; his 2025 paper analyzes in-context learning with linear attention and finds a phase transition as pretraining-task diversity rises. As of October 2026, he is Gordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Applied Mathematics and Director of Graduate Studies in Applied Mathematics at Harvard.

Works
139
Citations
3,510
h-index
30

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2007

    Degrees in Shanghai and Illinois

    A Shanghai native, he earns an undergraduate degree at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007.

  2. 2010

    Postdoctoral work at EPFL

    After postdoctoral work at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, he joins Harvard SEAS at the end of 2010.

  3. 2015

    An Illinois alumni award

    He receives the ECE Illinois Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2015.

  4. 2019

    Tenure at Harvard

    In 2019, Harvard approves him for full professor with tenure at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

  5. 2024

    Harvard College Professor

    Harvard names him a Harvard College Professor in 2024 for his commitment to undergraduate teaching.

  6. 2024

    IEEE Fellow

    IEEE elevates him to Fellow in 2024 for contributions to multidimensional signal processing.

  7. July 2025

    Linear attention and in-context learning

    In July 2025, he coauthors an analysis of in-context learning with linear attention. The paper finds a phase transition in model behavior between low and high pretraining-task diversity, with memorization in low-diversity settings.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and graduate studies director

    As of October 2026, he is Gordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Applied Mathematics at Harvard and Director of Graduate Studies in Applied Mathematics.

Career

  1. Since 2010Harvard UniversityGordon McKay Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Applied Mathematics, Director of Graduate Studies in Applied Mathematics
  2. Until 2010EPFL

Education

  1. 2007University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignM.Sc. and Ph.D.
  2. Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityUndergraduate degree

From the biography.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Yue Lu approved tenure seas.harvard.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.
  2. Lu named a Harvard College Professor seas.harvard.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.
  3. 55 SPS Members Elevated to Fellow signalprocessingsociety.org. Checked 26 October 2026.
  4. Asymptotic theory of in-context learning by linear attention pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 26 October 2026.
  5. Yue Lu | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences seas.harvard.edu. Checked 26 October 2026.