RESEARCHER
FILMMAKER
DAVID YIYANG LIU
DAVID YIYANG LIU — RESEARCH PROFILE
MPHIL STUDENT — UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (UNSW)
MEMBER OF THE UNSW NLP RESEARCH GROUP
I'm an MPhil student at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), researching the intersection of narrative theory, natural language processing, and large language models. I'm part of the UNSW NLP research group.
My work applies narratological frameworks to the design and evaluation of story-generation systems, and explores reinforcement learning methods for producing more coherent, theory-informed narratives. I also collaborate on research applying VR and generative AI to filmmaking education.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship
UNSW
Domestic Research Training Grant (DRTG)
UNSW
STEMM Champion
UNSW STEMM Champions Program
Taste of Research Scholarship
UNSW
EXPERIENCE
I tutor across Computer Science and Engineering, and Arts and Media.
- Data Structures and Algorithms
- Screen Production II
I develop and maintain features for a digital education portal using React and AWS, part-time.
PUBLICATIONS
Narrative Theory-Driven LLM Methods for Automatic Story Generation and Understanding: A Survey
Accepted for publication in Artificial Intelligence Review (Springer)
Retell, Reward, Repeat: Reinforcement Learning for Narrative Theory-Informed Story Retelling
Proceedings of INLG 2026
Unreliable Narrator Framing as a Cost-effective Mechanism for Satire Explanation of Australian and American Satirical News
arXiv preprint arXiv:2610.12863
Language Models Have Interpretable Narrative Mechanisms
arXiv preprint arXiv:2610.12989
Filmmaking Education Using Virtual Reality and Generative AI for Real-Time Feedback in Simulated Environments
2025 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct)
Metaverse and Virtual Reality Integration in Filmmaking Education: Applications in Cinematography and Artificial Intelligence Feedback
Metaverse, Generative AI, and Brain–Computer Interfaces (book chapter)