Senkang Forest Hu

Biography

Senkang "Forest" Hu (胡森康, feel free to call him "Forest") is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Fellow of ACM & IEEE & AAAS, Chair Prof. Yuguang "Michael" Fang. Previously, he was a Visiting PhD at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, working with Prof. Jiarui Gan. He received his BSc degree from the School of Information and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology in 2022.

His current research focuses on long-horizon LLM agents, agentic reinforcement learning, and self-evolving agents. His long-term goal is to build agents that solve complex tasks, learn from interaction, and continually improve with limited external supervision. His work has appeared at top-tier conferences, including ICML, NeurIPS, CVPR, AAAI (Oral), and ICRA, and in top-tier journals, including TMC, TITS, and ToN. He also serves as a reviewer or technical program committee member for ICML, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICRA, TMC, ToN, TITS, etc. He received the CYCSGS Scholarship, CityUHK's highest honor for PhD students, as the sole awardee in the Dept. of CS. He also received the Goertek Scholarship as one of only two awardees in the Dept. of CS. He received the Best Paper Award at GLOBECOM'25.

Education & Experience

OXFORD
Visiting PhD @ University of Oxford
Mar. 2026 - Jul. 2026
Dept. of Computer Science, conducting research on agentic reinforcement learning, self-evolving agents, and game theory.
Working with Prof. Jiarui Gan
HUAWEI
Research Intern @ Huawei Hong Kong Research Center
Jun. 2025 - Feb. 2026
Conduct research on Agentic Reasoning and Reinforcement Learning, proposed InfoReasoner (ICML'26).
Working with Prof. Yuzhi Zhao
CITYUHK
PhD @ City University of Hong Kong
Aug. 2023 - Now
Dept. of Computer Science, supervised by Chair Prof. Yuguang "Michael" Fang, ACM/IEEE/AAAS Fellow
Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies Scholarship (Top 0.3%, sole awardee in CS Dept.)
BIT
BSc @ Beijing Institute of Technology
Sep. 2018 - Jul. 2022
Electronic Information Engineering
National Scholarship (Top 1%)

Research Vision

Building LLM agents that solve long-horizon tasks, learn through reinforcement, and continually self-evolve.

Long Horizon

Long-Horizon LLM Agents

Developing LLM agents that maintain coherent plans, manage evolving task states, use tools, and recover from errors across extended interaction trajectories.

  • Planning & Multi-Step Reasoning
  • Search, Retrieval & Tool Use
  • Efficient Long-Horizon Inference
Agentic RL

Agentic Reinforcement Learning

Designing reinforcement learning and credit-assignment methods that optimize multi-step agent trajectories from sparse, delayed, and outcome-based feedback.

  • Reward Design & Learning Signals
  • Long-Horizon Credit Assignment
  • Exploration & Policy Optimization
Self-Evolution

Self-Evolving Agents

Enabling agents to learn from experience, acquire reusable skills, and autonomously improve their capabilities with limited external supervision.

  • Experience-Driven Self-Improvement
  • Context & Memory Evolution
  • Skill Acquisition & Transfer

Latest News

Blogs & Notes

Publications

*co-first author, corresponding author

Honors & Awards

Jul. 2026

Goertek Scholarships

Goertek Inc.

One of only two awardees in the Department of Computer Science.

Mar. 2026

Research Activity Fund

City University of Hong Kong

Dec. 2025

Best Paper Award

IEEE Communications Society
UAV-enabled Computing Power Networks: Task Completion Probability Analysis at IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM'25)

Nov. 2025

IEEE ComSoc Student Grant

IEEE Communications Society

Nov. 2025

Conference Travel Grant for Research Degree Students

City University of Hong Kong

Aug. 2025

Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies Scholarship, Top 0.3%

City University of Hong Kong

10 awardees university-wide, and the sole awardee in the Department of Computer Science.

Aug. 2025

Research Tuition Scholarship

City University of Hong Kong

Nov. 2024

IEEE ComSoc Student Travel Grant

IEEE Communications Society

2023

Institutional Research Tuition Grant

City University of Hong Kong

HK$170,000 to cover part of tuition fees during PhD.

2023

InnoHK Award Funding

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Around HK$900,000 to support research and PhD career.

Dec. 2021

National Scholarship

Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China

The highest national honors for undergraduate students in China.

2020

Example of Scientific Research Innovation, Top 1%

Beijing Institute of Technology

2018-2021

First Class Academic Scholarship, 4 times

Beijing Institute of Technology

2018-2021

Excellent Student of Beijing Institute of Technology, 3 times

Beijing Institute of Technology

Services

Conference Technical Program Committee & Reviewer

  • ICML
  • ICLR
  • NeurIPS
  • AAAI
  • CVPR
  • ICCV
  • CSCW
  • ACM MM
  • ICRA
  • IROS
  • ECCV
  • ICCC

Journal Reviewer

  • ACM Computing Surveys
  • IEEE TMC
  • IEEE/ACM ToN
  • IEEE TITS
  • IET Information Security
  • IEEE TNSM
  • ACM TAAS
  • Information Fusion
  • Pattern Recognition
  • IEEE RA-L
  • Proceedings of the IEEE
  • IEEE TVT
  • IEEE TPDS

Teaching Assistant

  • Cloud Computing, 2026 Spring
  • Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice, 2026 Spring
  • Info Security for eCommerce, 2025 Fall
  • Cloud Computing, 2025 Spring
  • Computer Networks, 2024 Fall
  • Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice, 2024 Spring