Salman Rahman

Ph.D. Student in AI/NLP • UCLA

I am a Computer Science Ph.D. student at the University of California, Los Angeles, working under the supervision of Professor Saadia Gabriel. I collaborate closely with Professor Pavel Izmailov and Professor Yejin Choi.

My research focuses on improving the reasoning and planning capabilities of language models through reinforcement learning. I am interested in developing AI systems that can perform multi-step reasoning over complex problems, devise and execute plans, effectively use tools, and collaborate through communication and debate. Currently, I am working on efficient exploration strategies in RL, reinforcement learning with dense rewards for long-horizon tasks, and multi-agent systems with collaborative reasoning.

Some of my recent projects include SPARK (reference-free RL training with generative process reward models), X-Teaming (adaptive multi-agent jailbreaks and defenses), MOSAIC (social AI for content dissemination), Xolver (multi-agent reasoning with experience learning), and AI Debate (scalable oversight for factuality claims).

Recently, I interned with Amazon's AGI team, where I worked on generative process reward models for improving LLM reasoning through reinforcement learning. Previously, I interned at Apple's machine learning team, developing efficient multimodal LLMs for on-device deployment. At UCLA, I help organize the NLP Seminar Series.

Before joining UCLA, I worked at NYU on projects including Clinical LLM generalization, machine learning explanation disparity, and big data in healthcare. During my undergraduate and master's studies, I focused on computational sustainability, exploring how AI systems can address pressing societal and environmental challenges of the 21st century. Explore my publications on computational sustainability here.

News

Sep, 2025

AI Debate paper accepted at NeurIPS 2025!

Aug, 2025

MOSAIC paper accepted at EMNLP 2025!

Jul, 2025

X-Teaming paper accepted at COLM 2025!

Jun, 2025

Xolver paper on multi-agent reasoning with holistic experience learning available as a preprint.

Jun, 2025

Excited to join Amazon AGI Team as Applied Scientist Intern!

Selected Publications

SPARK Framework

SPARK: Stepwise Process-Aware Rewards for Reference-Free Reinforcement Learning

Salman Rahman, Sruthi Gorantla, Arpit Gupta, Swastik Roy, Nanyun Peng, Yang Liu

TBD, 2025 PDF (Coming Soon)

Xolver Framework

Xolver: Multi-Agent Reasoning with Holistic Experience Learning Just Like an Olympiad Team

Md Tanzib Hosain, Salman Rahman, Md Kishor Morol, Md Rizwan Parvez

arXiv preprint, 2025 PROJECT PDF CODE

AI Debate Framework

AI Debate Aids Assessment of Controversial Claims

Salman Rahman, Sheriff Issaka, Ashima Suvarna, Genglin Liu, James Shiffer, Jaeyoung Lee, Md Rizwan Parvez, Hamid Palangi, Shi Feng, Nanyun Peng, Yejin Choi, Julian Michael, Liwei Jiang, Saadia Gabriel

NeurIPS, 2025 PDF CODE

X-Teaming Framework

𝕏-Teaming: Multi-Turn Jailbreaks and Defenses with Adaptive Multi-Agents

Salman Rahman*, Liwei Jiang*, James Shiffer*, Genglin Liu, Sheriff Issaka, Md Rizwan Parvez, Hamid Palangi, Kai-Wei Chang, Yejin Choi, Saadia Gabriel

COLM, 2025 PROJECT PDF CODE

Social Simulation Framework

MOSAIC: Modeling Social AI for Content Dissemination and Regulation in Multi-Agent Simulations

Genglin Liu, Vivian Le, Salman Rahman, Elisa Kreiss, Marzyeh Ghassemi, Saadia Gabriel

EMNLP, 2025 PDF CODE

Image description

Understanding Disparities in Post Hoc Machine Learning Explanation

Vishwali Mhasawade, Salman Rahman, Zoe Haskell-Craig, Rumi Chunara

FAccT, 2024 PDF CODE

Healthcare AI Model

Generalization in Healthcare AI: Evaluation of a Clinical Large Language Model

Salman Rahman, Lavender Yao Jiang, Saadia Gabriel, Yindalon Aphinyanaphongs, Eric Karl Oermann, Rumi Chunara

arXiv preprint, 2024 PDF

PNAS Paper

Utilizing big data without domain knowledge impacts public health decision-making

Miao Zhang, Salman Rahman, Vishwali Mhasawade, Rumi Chunara

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 2024 HTML

Teaching

Fall 2023

Guest Lecturer, Foundation(Large) Language Model
CS-GY 9223: Foundations of Data Science, Graduate, NYU