People / Students / Class of 2026
Hongyang Yu is a graduate student in the Machine Learning and Data Science (MLDS) program at Northwestern University, with a strong foundation in mathematics, economics, and data analytics. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2025, where he majored in Mathematics (Data Optimization concentration) and Economics, graduating with a 3.93 GPA. His academic interests lie at the intersection of machine learning, optimization, and applied statistics.
He has held multiple data-focused internships, including positions at Datayes, the Student Money Management Center (UIUC), China Electronics Hongxin Information Technology, and a Natural Language Processing data lab. In these roles, Hongyang worked on projects ranging from social media analytics and regression modeling to AI data annotation and web scraping. He has also contributed to academic research through the Illinois Mathematics Lab, where he implemented Lagrange multiplier methods in Python to optimize physical properties of geometric structures.
Beyond coursework and research, Hongyang has actively developed his technical skills in Python, SQL, and R, and is proficient with tools like Tableau and Jupyter Notebook. He is passionate about solving real-world problems with data and aspires to work as a data scientist or data analyst in the future, leveraging data to drive business insights and impact.
