Xu Cao

I am a CS PhD Candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, advised by Prof. James M. Rehg and Prof. Jimeng Sun. Driven by my personal history as a former pediatric rare disease patient, I co-founded PediaMed AI to advance AI technologies specifically for pediatrics. My research lies at the intersection of Vision Language Models (VLMs), Agentic AI, Social Embodied AI. In the meanwhile, I also focus on developing applications such as AR smart glasses and Pediatrics Foundation Models.

Previously, I gained industry experience as a Machine Learning Engineer at SambaNova Systems and Tencent, working on autonomous driving and generative AI. I have also held research internships at NEC Labs America and Google Research. I hold an MS in Computer Science from the Courant Institute (NYU) and a BS in Data Science and Chemistry from Fudan University, where I graduated ranked 1st in my major.

Collaboration & Future Plans: Complimenting my work at UIUC, I co-fund and co-direct a multidisciplinary research lab of 10 research scientists and engineers at PediaMed AI alongside Dr. Meihuan Huang, pioneering AI-driven solutions for pediatrics and child development. Looking forward, my research is dedicated to building next-generation AI that understands and interacts with real-world, focusing on three synergistic pillars: (1) Learning from children: cognitive learning inspired Multimodal LLMs. (2) Social Embodied AI Agent that can perceive human’s non-verbal social cues like gesture, gaze, emotion. (3) Pediatric Foundation Models for neurodevelopmental disorders.

❗Several projects in Cognitive Multimodal LLMs, AR Agent from my start-up are seeking for investment from VC. Feel free to ping me!