Assistant ProfessorI am Weiming Feng (凤维明), an Assistant Professor at the School of Computing and Data Science at The University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, I held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Theoretical Studies at ETH Zürich, the Simons Institute at UC Berkeley, and the School of Informatics at The University of Edinburgh. I received my Ph.D. from Nanjing University in June 2021, where I was advised by Prof. Yitong Yin. Before that, I obtained my B.Eng. degree in Network Engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in June 2016.
My research interest lies in theoretical computer science. Currently, I focus on sampling and counting algorithms. Classic topics include Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, spatial mixing of Gibbs distributions and computational phase transitions. I am also interested in their applications in statistics and learning theory.
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Current PhD Students
- Minji Yang (2024-present)
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Research Interns
- Xiongxin Yang (New York University Shanghai) May 2025 - July 2025
- Yixiao Yu (Nanjing University) May 2025 - July 2025
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Mini-course: mixing time analysis for MCMC algorithms
Mini-course: mixing time analysis for MCMC algorithms
Preprints
Approximating the total variation distance between spin systems
Weiming Feng, Hongyang Liu, Minji Yang
Approximating the total variation distance between spin systems
Weiming Feng, Hongyang Liu, Minji Yang
Deterministic counting from coupling independence
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Xinyuan Zhang, Zourui Zou
Deterministic counting from coupling independence
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Xinyuan Zhang, Zourui Zou
Rapid mixing via coupling independence for spin systems with unbounded degree
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng
Rapid mixing via coupling independence for spin systems with unbounded degree
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng
Publications
Rapid mixing of the flip chain over non-crossing spanning trees
Konrad Anand, Weiming Feng, Graham Freifeld, Heng Guo, Mark Jerrum, Jiaheng Wang
SoCG 2025
Rapid mixing of the flip chain over non-crossing spanning trees
Konrad Anand, Weiming Feng, Graham Freifeld, Heng Guo, Mark Jerrum, Jiaheng Wang
SoCG 2025
Approximating the total variation distance between Gaussians
Arnab Bhattacharyya, Weiming Feng, Piyush Srivastava
AISTATS 2025
Approximating the total variation distance between Gaussians
Arnab Bhattacharyya, Weiming Feng, Piyush Srivastava
AISTATS 2025
Optimal mixing for randomly sampling edge colorings on trees down to the max degree
Charlie Carlson, Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Eric Vigoda
SODA 2025
Optimal mixing for randomly sampling edge colorings on trees down to the max degree
Charlie Carlson, Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Eric Vigoda
SODA 2025
Approximate counting for spin systems in sub-quadratic time
Konrad Anand, Weiming Feng, Graham Freifeld, Heng Guo, Jiaheng Wang
ICALP 2024
TheoretiCS Volume 4 (2025), Article 3, 1-27
Approximate counting for spin systems in sub-quadratic time
Konrad Anand, Weiming Feng, Graham Freifeld, Heng Guo, Jiaheng Wang
ICALP 2024
TheoretiCS Volume 4 (2025), Article 3, 1-27
An FPRAS for two terminal reliability in directed acyclic graphs
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo
ICALP 2024
[Arxiv] [Slides-Short] [Slides-Long] [Heng's Slides] [Heng's Talk (in Chinese)]
An FPRAS for two terminal reliability in directed acyclic graphs
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo
ICALP 2024
[Arxiv] [Slides-Short] [Slides-Long] [Heng's Slides] [Heng's Talk (in Chinese)]
On deterministically approximating total variation distance
Weiming Feng, Liqiang Liu, Tianren Liu
SODA 2024
On deterministically approximating total variation distance
Weiming Feng, Liqiang Liu, Tianren Liu
SODA 2024
Towards derandomising Markov chain Monte Carlo
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Chunyang Wang, Jiaheng Wang, Yitong Yin
FOCS 2023
[Arxiv] [Slides] [Poster] [Heng's Slides] [Heng's Talk] [Jiaheng's Slides] [Chunyang's Slides]
Towards derandomising Markov chain Monte Carlo
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Chunyang Wang, Jiaheng Wang, Yitong Yin
FOCS 2023
[Arxiv] [Slides] [Poster] [Heng's Slides] [Heng's Talk] [Jiaheng's Slides] [Chunyang's Slides]
On the mixing time of Glauber dynamics for the hard-core and related models on G(n,d/n)
Charilaos Efthymiou, Weiming Feng
ICALP 2023
On the mixing time of Glauber dynamics for the hard-core and related models on G(n,d/n)
Charilaos Efthymiou, Weiming Feng
ICALP 2023
Swendsen-Wang dynamics for the ferromagnetic Ising model with external fields
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Jiaheng Wang
Information and Computation Volume 294, October 2023, 105066
Swendsen-Wang dynamics for the ferromagnetic Ising model with external fields
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Jiaheng Wang
Information and Computation Volume 294, October 2023, 105066
A simple polynomial-time approximation algorithm for the total variation distance between two product distributions
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Mark Jerrum, Jiaheng Wang
SOSA 2023
TheoretiCS Volume 2 (2023), Article 8, 1-7
[Arxiv] [Slides-Short] [Slides-Long] [Poster] [Jiaheng's Slides]
A simple polynomial-time approximation algorithm for the total variation distance between two product distributions
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Mark Jerrum, Jiaheng Wang
SOSA 2023
TheoretiCS Volume 2 (2023), Article 8, 1-7
[Arxiv] [Slides-Short] [Slides-Long] [Poster] [Jiaheng's Slides]
Optimal mixing for two-state anti-ferromagnetic spin systems
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Yitong Yin, Xinyuan Zhang
FOCS 2022
Optimal mixing for two-state anti-ferromagnetic spin systems
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Yitong Yin, Xinyuan Zhang
FOCS 2022
Improved bounds for randomly colouring simple hypergraphs
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Jiaheng Wang
RANDOM 2022
Improved bounds for randomly colouring simple hypergraphs
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Jiaheng Wang
RANDOM 2022
Perfect sampling from spatial mixing
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Yitong Yin
Random Structures & Algorithms, 2022;61:678–709
Perfect sampling from spatial mixing
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Yitong Yin
Random Structures & Algorithms, 2022;61:678–709
Rapid mixing of Glauber dynamics via spectral independence for all degrees
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Yitong Yin, Xinyuan Zhang
FOCS 2021
SIAM Journal on Computing Special Section on FOCS 2021
Rapid mixing of Glauber dynamics via spectral independence for all degrees
Xiaoyu Chen, Weiming Feng, Yitong Yin, Xinyuan Zhang
FOCS 2021
SIAM Journal on Computing Special Section on FOCS 2021
Sampling constraint satisfaction solutions in the local lemma regime
Weiming Feng, Kun He, Yitong Yin
STOC 2021
Sampling constraint satisfaction solutions in the local lemma regime
Weiming Feng, Kun He, Yitong Yin
STOC 2021
Rapid mixing from spectral independence beyond the Boolean domain
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Yitong Yin, Chihao Zhang
SODA 2021
ACM Transactions on Algorithms, Volume 18, Issue 3, 2022
Rapid mixing from spectral independence beyond the Boolean domain
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Yitong Yin, Chihao Zhang
SODA 2021
ACM Transactions on Algorithms, Volume 18, Issue 3, 2022
Distributed Metropolis sampler with optimal parallelism
Weiming Feng, Thomas P. Hayes, Yitong Yin
SODA 2021
Distributed Metropolis sampler with optimal parallelism
Weiming Feng, Thomas P. Hayes, Yitong Yin
SODA 2021
Dynamic inference in probabilistic graphical models
Weiming Feng, Kun He, Xiaoming Sun, Yitong Yin
ITCS 2021
Dynamic inference in probabilistic graphical models
Weiming Feng, Kun He, Xiaoming Sun, Yitong Yin
ITCS 2021
Fast sampling and counting k-SAT solutions in the local lemma regime
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Yitong Yin, Chihao Zhang
STOC 2020
Journal of the ACM 68, 6, Article 40 (September 2021)
[Arxiv] [DOI] [Slides-Short] [Slides-Long] [Talk] [Heng's Slides] [Heng's Talk]
Fast sampling and counting k-SAT solutions in the local lemma regime
Weiming Feng, Heng Guo, Yitong Yin, Chihao Zhang
STOC 2020
Journal of the ACM 68, 6, Article 40 (September 2021)
[Arxiv] [DOI] [Slides-Short] [Slides-Long] [Talk] [Heng's Slides] [Heng's Talk]
Dynamic sampling from graphical models
Weiming Feng, Nisheet K. Vishnoi, Yitong Yin
STOC 2019
SIAM Journal on Computing 50(2), 350–381, 2021
Dynamic sampling from graphical models
Weiming Feng, Nisheet K. Vishnoi, Yitong Yin
STOC 2019
SIAM Journal on Computing 50(2), 350–381, 2021
What can be sampled locally?
Weiming Feng, Yuxin Sun, Yitong Yin
PODC 2017
Distributed Computing Volume 33, pages 227–253, (2020)
What can be sampled locally?
Weiming Feng, Yuxin Sun, Yitong Yin
PODC 2017
Distributed Computing Volume 33, pages 227–253, (2020)